Porträt des Franz Konrad von Rodt (1706-1775)

The portrait of Franz Konrad von Rodt from 1757, now in the National Museum Zurich, is one of Kauffmann's earliest surviving works, painted when she was only sixteen years old and already demonstrating the exceptional talent that would lead her to international fame. Von Rodt was an ecclesiastical figure — the subject's formal dress suggests high clerical rank — and his commissioning of a portrait from a teenage Swiss-German girl indicates the early recognition of Kauffmann's remarkable abilities. She had been painting since childhood, trained by her father Johann Josef Kauffmann, a decorative painter who recognized and nurtured his daughter's gift. By the time she painted this portrait she had already traveled extensively with her father through Switzerland, Austria, and northern Italy, absorbing influences from multiple European painting traditions. The National Museum Zurich holds this early work as evidence of Swiss cultural contribution to European art, and the portrait of von Rodt demonstrates the precocious ability that Kauffmann would develop over the following decades into one of the most celebrated artistic careers of the 18th century. The formal ecclesiastical portrait already shows the controlled technique and honest characterization of her mature work.

The early portrait already shows Kauffmann's confident handling and ability to capture individual character, though with less of the refined elegance that would characterize her mature work.