Biographical Information

Obituary from The Chronicle of Art, Oct. 1884:

Hans Markart (1840-1884) was born in Salzburg. He studied at Munich under Piloty - whose best pupil he was - and afterwards at Rome; and at seven-and-twenty the Paris Exhibition mad him famous. In 1869 he settled at Vienna, and there - a favourite at court, the darling of the Viennese, the proprietor of a magnificent studio, the painter of a number of renouned pictures, a public character in every sense of the word - he remained until his death. He had great facility of invention and design, was a dexterous draughtsman, and had a certain sumptuousness of colour and a passion for immense canvases: which qualities won him the very honourable nicknames of the "Scott of the painting" and the "Austrian Rubens". Among the most famous of his pictures are the Cleopatra, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Venetians Taking the Oath to Catherine Cornaro, and the Entry of Charles V into Antwerp. [...]

Acknowledgements:
Our thanks go to Don Kurtz for kindly transcribing this article.