Das Konklave

Hans Makart painted Das Konklave in 1864 at the very outset of his career, when the young Salzburg-born artist was still absorbing the theatrical lessons of his Munich teacher Karl von Piloty. The subject — the secret gathering of cardinals to elect a pope — allowed Makart to indulge his appetite for richly costumed figures bathed in dramatic candlelight. Conclaves had long fascinated European genre painters because they offered a rare glimpse behind the locked doors of the Vatican, combining ecclesiastical pomp with clandestine political intrigue. Makart's rendering reflects the mid-nineteenth-century taste for historically staged interiors, a tradition popularised by painters such as Eugène Devéria and Paul Delaroche. The Bavarian State Painting Collections acquired the work, recognising it as an early demonstration of the chromatic exuberance that would define Makart's mature Vienna style. Although he would later abandon the more restrained palette of his Munich apprenticeship, in Das Konklave one can already detect his fascination with contrasting warm and cool light sources and the dramatic grouping of figures in ceremonial dress.

Painted in oil on canvas with a warm, candlelit palette dominated by deep crimsons and gold ochres, the composition relies on Piloty-school chiaroscuro to model the gathered prelates. Fluid, confident brushwork defines fabric textures while softer handling blurs background figures into atmospheric shadow.