Die Überführung der Leiche von La Tour d'Auvergne

Albert von Keller was a Munich-based painter known for his society portraits and for psychical and spiritualist paintings in later life. This 1889 canvas depicts the transfer of the body of Théophile de la Tour d'Auvergne — celebrated as the 'First Grenadier of France' during the Napoleonic Wars — a subject that aligned with the late 19th-century German interest in heroic patriotic narratives and historical commemorative painting. The work, now in the Neue Pinakothek, represents the more conventional side of Keller's eclectic career.

Von Keller applies the technical competence of a Munich Academic painter trained in the grand narrative tradition — strong compositional organization, controlled figure painting, and an atmospheric landscape setting. The emotional tone is solemn and reverential, with the body of the fallen hero as the visual and narrative center.