Kostüme auf einem Stuhl

Franz Rumpler was an Austrian painter working in the Viennese naturalist tradition, and his still life of costumes on a chair at the Belvedere captures both his technical skill and an unusual subject — theatrical or period costumes arranged as a still life rather than worn by a sitter. Such subjects appealed to painters who were interested in the material culture of dress and the formal possibilities of draped fabric without the complications of a live model. The Belvedere holds this as part of its comprehensive collection of Austrian nineteenth-century painting.

The costumes arranged on the chair are rendered with careful observation of how fabric falls and organizes itself in the absence of a body — the ghost of the body implied by the clothes' shapes. Rumpler's palette captures the specific colors and textures of historical dress. His handling of the varied fabric materials — their different weights and surfaces — shows technical accomplishment.