Austrian · Academic art
Luise Max-Ehrler
b. 10 August 1850, Florence — d. 24 July 1920, Aigen near Salzburg
Luise Max-Ehrler (1850–1920) was an Austrian painter, trained in Prague, Munich and Vienna under Hans Makart, whose painting The Telegram (1894) is in the National Gallery Prague.
1 work in the collection
Works by Luise Max-Ehrler
Luise Max-Ehrler was an Austrian painter of portraits and genre scenes who worked in Prague, Vienna and Munich. Her best-known picture is The Telegram (1894), now in the National Gallery Prague, in which a woman in white sits among letters with a small revolver in her lap.
Life
She was born Luise Ehrler von Erlenburg in Florence on 10 August 1850, the daughter of an Austrian army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Franz Ehrler von Erlenburg. The family settled in Prague in the mid-1860s, and there she began studying painting with Emil Lauffer, director of the Prague Academy. She continued in Munich with Joseph Flüggen.
On 27 December 1877 she married the painter Heinrich (Jindřich) Max in Prague and went on to study in Vienna with Hans Makart. After Makart's death in 1884 the couple moved to Munich, where she studied further with her brother-in-law, the painter Gabriel von Max, a favorite of the Symbolist generation. Her husband died in 1890, and she moved to Aigen near Salzburg, close to her brother Guido, where she lived until her death on 24 July 1920.
Work
Her paintings show the influence of Makart's rich history painting and of the psychological, often melancholy female subjects of Gabriel Max. The Czech press followed her work closely in the 1880s and 1890s; the magazine Zlatá Praha reproduced her pictures, and she exhibited regularly with the Prague Krasoumná jednota (Fine Arts Union). After 1900 she largely disappears from Czech reviews.
The Telegram
The Krasoumná jednota bought The Telegram in 1895, and it passed to the National Gallery Prague. A woman in a white dress has received bad news; letters and the telegram surround her, and the revolver in her lap hints at what she may do next. It is a quiet, unsettling drama told without any action at all.
See also famous paintings of women and Academic art.
Questions & answers
Who painted The Telegram in the National Gallery Prague?
The Telegram (1894) was painted by the Austrian artist Luise Max-Ehrler, also known as Luisa Max-Ehrlerová. It was bought by the Prague Fine Arts Union in 1895 and is now in the National Gallery Prague.
Who taught Luise Max-Ehrler?
She studied with Emil Lauffer in Prague, Joseph Flüggen in Munich, Hans Makart in Vienna and, after 1884, her brother-in-law Gabriel von Max in Munich.
Was Luise Max-Ehrler related to Gabriel von Max?
Yes. In 1877 she married the painter Heinrich Max, Gabriel von Max's brother, making Gabriel her brother-in-law and later her teacher in Munich.