The Painter Victor Müller

Leibl's 1870 portrait of his fellow Munich painter Victor Müller, also in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, documents another member of the informal circle of realist painters that formed around Leibl in the early 1870s. Victor Müller (1829-1871) was a Munich-based painter who had studied in Paris and was among the older generation of German painters sympathetic to Courbet's approach; he died in 1871, making this one of the last portraits of him and giving it a documentary importance beyond its painterly merit. Leibl painted Müller in 1870, the same year as several other important portrait studies, and the work reflects the same direct, unflattered approach he brought to all his artist-friends. The oil on canvas support (rather than the mahogany panel he would use increasingly in later years) allows a somewhat looser handling than his most precise panel portraits.

Oil paint on canvas gives Leibl a more fluid working surface than mahogany, and the 1870 portrait of Müller benefits from this slightly broader handling. The face is still the primary focus of technical investment, while the dark suit and background are handled with efficient economy.