Der Dichter Anastasius Grün (alias Anton Alexander Graf von Auersperg)

Heinrich von Angeli's 1876 portrait of the poet Anastasius Grün — the pen name of Anton Alexander Graf von Auersperg — depicts one of the leading Austrian liberal political poets of the 19th century. Grün was a Carinthian aristocrat who used poetry to advocate for constitutional government and democratic reform in the Habsburg Empire, making him both a literary figure and a political symbol. Von Angeli, primarily known for royal and aristocratic portraits, occasionally painted cultural figures of significance. The Belvedere in Vienna holds this portrait as part of its collection of 19th-century Austrian painting and cultural documentation.

Von Angeli brings his characteristic fluid, assured brushwork to this literary portrait, rendering the elderly poet with careful attention to the marks of age and character on his face. The handling is warmer and less formally constrained than his royal portraits, appropriate to an intellectual rather than a monarch.