Name of Object:

Portrait of Count Maxmilián Oldřich Kounic

Location:

State Chateau, Slavkov, Moravia, Czech Republic

Holding Museum:

History Museum, Slavkov

Original Owner:

Count Kounic

Current Owner:

Slavkov Chateau

Date of Object:

1698

Artist(s) / Craftsperson(s):

Jakob Ferdinand Voet (1639, Antwerp-1700, Paris)

Museum Inventory Number:

44

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Oil on canvas

Dimensions:

h: 73.5 cm; w: 60 cm

Provenance:

Slavkov Chateau

Type of object:

Painting

Place of production:

Paris

Description:

This rendition of a young count in informal brocade clothes and a lace housecoat stands out from the routine official court portraits of its time by virtue of its soft rendering in relaxed brush strokes. The spontaneity and lightness of the work correspond with the personality of a youth known to be devoted to “aristocratic” pastimes such as dancing, horse riding, fencing and playing the guitar. The young count travelled twice to the court in Düsseldorf to get to know his future wife, heiress of the Rietberg County. Maxmilián Oldřich Kounic (1679–1746), later the Moravian provincial governor, undertook the grand tour in 1698, visiting The Hague, Brussels and finally Paris, where he had his portrait painted by a Flemish artist who moved through the elegant Roman and Paris milieu.
The Kounic family was among the most powerful in Moravia. Maxmilián Oldřich's father, Dominik Ondřej Kounic, was the imperial vice-chancellor, his son Václav Antonín Dominik (1711–1794) became a leading diplomat, court and state chancellor under the reign of four emperors, Maria Theresa, Joseph II, Leopold II and Francis II. Václav Antonín Dominik also promoted the ideas of the Enlightenment; he established the Academy of Science and Belle Lettres in Brussels and united the Vienna Academy. Maxmilián Oldřich Kounic was responsible for selecting painters to decorate the Assembly Hall of the Provincial Estates in Brno, and played an important part in the reconstruction of the Kounic family residence in Slavkov, the design of which was among the first examples of the French chateau plan in Moravia.

This rendition of a young count stands out from the routine official court portraits of its time by virtue of its soft rendering in relaxed brush strokes. The portrait came into existence during the grand tour of Maxmilián Oldřich Kounic, who later became the Moravian provincial governor.

How date and origin were established:

Letters that survive from Count Kounic’s grand tour elucidate the circumstances of the portrait’s origin. Dominik Ondřej Kounic wanted to commission a portrait of his son the size of which was to be identical to that of his own portrait by Hyacinth Rigaud. His son wanted to know whether to choose Rigaud or Gottfried Kneller to portray him, and asked his father to send him the dimensions of the picture marked by knots on a string as he believed nobody in France would understand Moravian measurements. Unfortunately, the count’s choice of portrait artist is not covered by further correspondence. Marie Mžyková has suggested, on the basis of a style analysis backed by the comparison of X-rays, that the artist was Jakob Ferdinand Voet, a court portraitist from Antwerp.

How Object was obtained:

The painting was part of the Kounic collection in Slavkov Chateau, near Brno. It is currently administered by the Institute of National Heritage, Brno.

Selected bibliography:

Miloš Stehlík, Obrazárna státního zámku ve Slavkově u Brna, Brno 1966.
Marie Mžyková, Dílo Hyacintha Rigauda v československých sbírkách, in Barokní umění a jeho význam v české kultuře. Sborník sympozia, které pořádala Národní galerie v Praze k připomenutí osobnosti a díla Oldřicha J. Blažíčka ve dnech 11. a 12. prosince 1986, Prague, 1991, pp. 194–201.
Jiří Kroupa, Václav Antonín kníže Kounic-Rietberg a jeho doba, Brno, 1994.
Jiří Kroupa, in Jiří Kroupa (ed), Dans le miroir des ombres. La Moravie a la age baroque 1760–1790, Brno–Paris–Rennes, 2002, pp. 330–301, cat. 138, p. 136.

Citation of this web page:

Zora Wörgötter "Portrait of Count Maxmilián Oldřich Kounic" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;BAR;cz;Mus11_I;5;en

Prepared by: Zora WörgötterZora Wörgötter

SURNAME: Wörgötter
NAME: Zora

AFFILIATION: Moravian Gallery in Brno

TITLE: Museum Curator and Local Co-ordinator

CV:
Zora Wörgötter studied Applied Painting at the Secondary School of Applied Arts, Video Art (Faculty of Fine Arts) at the University of Technology in Brno and Art History and Ethnology (Faculty of Arts) at Masaryk University, Brno. She has worked at the Moravian Gallery since 1997 and was curator of the Ancient Art Collection up until 2008. Specialising in Dutch and Central European painting of the 17th and 18th centuries, she has participated in the preparation of several exhibitions, catalogues and research projects in the Czech Republic and abroad, and published in the Moravian Gallery Bulletin, Opuscula historiae artium, and other journals. She is co-ordinator of the Art History Database www.ahice.net for the Czech Republic.
Copyedited by: Jiří KroupaJiří Kroupa

SURNAME: Kroupa
NAME: Jiří

AFFILIATION: Department of the History of Art (Faculty of Arts) Masaryk
University, Brno

TITLE: Professor

CV:
Professor Jiří Kroupa studied Art History, History and Sociology Masaryk University, Brno. He was a curator at the Kroměříž Museum and the Moravian Gallery in Brno before joining the staff at Masaryk University in 1988 (Head of the Department 1992–2002; Professor 1999 to present). His particular fields of interest are in the history of architecture, 18th-century cultural history and the methodology of art history. His long list of publications includes an edition on the architect Franz Anton Grimm and an essay “The alchemy of happiness: the Enlightenment in the Moravian context”. He was contributing editor for the volume Dans le miroir des ombres. Moravie a la age baroque. 1670–1790 (2002).
Translation by: Irma Charvátová
Translation copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: CZ 06