MÜLLER, Carl Alois (Luigi) (The Artist’s Father) (1886)
Description:
Bust-length on cream background. Oil on canvas, 21.1/4″ x 14.1/4″ (53.8 cm x 36.1 cm), signed and dated upper right, ‘A. Muller-Ury 1886’.
Location:
Stiftung Adolfo Muller-Ury, Hospental, Switzerland.
Exhibition:
KUNSTMUSEUM, Bern, Switzerland, c. March 18 – c. April 18, 1888
Bibliography:
Intelligenzblatt, Bern, Switzerland, March 18, 1888
Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Switzerland, March 20, 1888
Schweizerische Morgen Tagblatt, Basel, Switzerland, March 22, 1888
Urner Wochenblatt, Altdorf, Switzerland, March 24, 1888
Basler Nachrichten, Switzerland, March 24, 1888
Die Ostschweiz, St. Gallen, Switzerland, March 25, 1888
Appenzeller Zeitung, Herisau, Switzerland, March 26, 1888
Intelligenzblatt, Bern, Switzerland, March 28, 1888
Tagblatt der Stadt St. Gallen, Switzerland, April 4, 1888
Journal de Geneve, Switzerland, April 15, 1888
The sitter was born in 1825 and died in 1887. He was described in the Dictionnaire Historique & Biographique de La Suisse (Neuchatel, 1930), Vol. 5, p. 42, No. 17, as ‘…d’Hospental, constructeur d’hotels et historien.’ But he was also a practising lawyer in Airolo, Ticino, and later Gerichtspräsident (Presiding Judge) of the Cantonal Courts.
It is most likely this picture of his father that was exhibited in 1888, rather than the one he painted in 1882 – which would have stayed at Hospental until it was sent to Adelina Müller in Herisau, perhaps about the time of her marriage.
