Portrait of the sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand.

'Portrait of the sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand,' painted in 1868 and held at the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal, depicts one of the most important relationships in von Marées's artistic life. Adolf von Hildebrand (1847–1921) was a sculptor whose theoretical writings, especially 'Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst' (The Problem of Form in the Visual Arts, 1893), became foundational texts for early twentieth-century formalist aesthetics. He and von Marées met in Rome in the 1860s and formed a creative partnership of unusual depth, with Hildebrand's sculptural thinking about three-dimensional form directly informing von Marées's approach to the figure in painting. A portrait of Hildebrand from 1868, when both were young artists finding their intellectual footing, records the beginning of this crucial collaboration. Von der Heydt Museum holds the work as an important document of the German artistic avant-garde of the late nineteenth century.

The portrait of a sculptor invites consideration of the relationship between painterly and sculptural approaches to form, and von Marées models Hildebrand's face with particular three-dimensional conviction — appropriate to a sitter whose entire artistic programme centred on three-dimensional form. The composition is direct and unadorned, placing the young sculptor's face in close confrontation with the viewer.