The Falconess

The Falconess, painted in 1880, exemplifies the decorative medievalism that Makart developed throughout the 1870s as his Vienna studio became a setting for elaborate costume tableaux. Falconry carried centuries of aristocratic association — it was the sport of kings and nobles throughout medieval and Renaissance Europe — and the figure of a woman with a trained bird of prey combined ideas of feminine beauty with controlled wildness. By 1880 Makart had refined his approach to such historical fantasy figures, typically placing them in lush outdoor settings with the loose, impressionistic backgrounds that set off his more carefully rendered central subjects. The work is held in the Bavarian State Painting Collections, which assembled an important group of Makart's figure paintings. The Falconess also resonates with the broader European revival of courtly imagery in the second half of the nineteenth century, when academic painters and decorators turned repeatedly to the Middle Ages and Renaissance for subjects that allowed historical costume, hunting equipment, and idealized female beauty to coexist on a single canvas.

Oil on canvas with Makart's characteristic layered technique: thin glazes in deep shadow areas, confident impasto in highlighted costume passages, and a relatively fluid handling of the background foliage. The warm golden tonality recalls Venetian Renaissance coloring, which Makart consciously referenced throughout his mature career.