Artist
Donát János
Creation year
1810
Technique
oil
canvas
Size
48 × 36 cm
Sign
signed bottom left
Donát PINXIT 1810
Genre
painting
ID
000010
Exhibitions
Published

9th Auction Catalugue. Nagyházi Gallery, Budapest, 1996. ill. 118.
A Kovács Gábor-gyűjtemény / The Gábor Kovács Collection. Ed.: Fertőszögi, Péter – Kratochwill, Mimi. Budapest, Vince Kiadó, 2004. pp. 51.
Bakó, Zsuzsanna: Donát János magyarországi német festő munkássága 1744-1830. Budapest, Mirio Bt., 2012. pp. 49. ill. 38.
Révész, Emese: "Vonzások és taszítások. A 19. század magyar fetészete magángyűjteményekből". Artmagazin 59, 5/2013, pp. 33.
Affinities and Transformations. 18th and 19th-Century Hungarian Paintings in Private Collections. Kovács Gábor Art Foundation, Budapest, 2013., p. 35.  [kat. 31.]

Notes
János Dániel Donát was one of the first artists to signal the dawn of a modern Hungarian painting. Best known for his altarpieces and mythological compositions, he also painted pictures in a classicist style, which portray some of the greatest figures of Hungarian culture, from Ferenc Kazinczy through Benedek Virág to Dániel Berzsenyi and Gábor Haska. The latter two portraits are now part of the Gábor Kovács Collection. Some of his portraits, as those of László Teleki or József Ürményi, were widely reproduced by engravers. This Female Portrait, however, is the odd one out in this group of works: on the one hand, we do not know who the subject was, and on the other, this is an early piece. Donát painted it in 1810, a key year in his life, when he moved to Pest after his studies in Vienna.