This was more than just a tribute to a legendary event. Without a doubt, Franz von Stuck wanted to draw attention to his importance as an innovative innovator of antiquity in the Munich art world on the threshold of the 20th century with the picture “Artist’s Festival 1898” and, with his characteristic radicalism, to create a monument to himself and his newly wedded wife Mary. Dressed in antique costumes, with wreaths of honor in their hair – he with ivy and the locks combed over his forehead in the Caesar style, she with a laurel braid in the Greek-style hairstyle – the couple is shown in profile in the small-format painting. Not even the state-supporting frontal view seemed necessary to the aspiring artist prince in order to adequately showcase his own importance as the new emperor of the Munich art scene.
Provenance like a post-war crime novel: a new acquisition from Villa Stuck – Munich
