DAFFINGER, Moritz Michael

(b. 1790 Wien, d. 1849 Wien)

Austrian painter. His father, Johann Daffinger (d. 1796), was a painter at the Kaiserliche Porzellanmanufaktur in Vienna and, at the age of 11, Daffinger was apprenticed there to his stepfather Philipp Krug and to Michael Weixlbaum. Daffinger studied and worked at the factory until 1812, also attending classes at the Akademie in Vienna under Hubert Maurer (1738-1818) and Heinrich Füger.

Initially Daffinger worked as a painter of miniatures, for example in portraits of French officers during the occupation of Vienna in 1809. At the time of the Vienna Congress, 1814-15, he worked as a portrait painter along with celebrated artists such as Füger and Jean-Baptiste Isabey. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s stay in Vienna in 1818-19 brought a new stimulus to Daffinger’s work, as it did for other artists: his colours became warmer in tone and they were applied in broader strokes and more decoratively.

Daffinger drew his inspiration primarily from Thomas Lawrence. He owned several mezzotint engravings of the Englishman’s works and he took over important compositional elements from Lawrence, who was acclaimed throughout Europe. After 1820, by drawing on this training and inspiration, Daffinger became the most fashionable portraitist of Viennese society. For the guestbook of Princess Melanie Metternich (1805-1854), the artist executed 65 miniature paintings. After 1841, Daffinger, who counted Franz Grillparzer among his friends, turned to flower painting.

Miniature of Elise Wolf

Moritz Michael Daffinger was one of Vienna’s most successful portraitists in the early nineteenth century. He started his career at the Vienna porcelain factory, and later his domain became the portrait miniature. He portrayed the actors of Vienna, painted guest portraits for the albums of his wife, and became acquainted with Grillparzer who introduced him into Schubert’s circle.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 13 minutes):

Franz Schubert: Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock) D 965

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Portrait of the Archduchess Maria Theresia

The little archduchess (1816-1867), later queen of Naples and Sicily (1837—1860), was portrayed when she was approximately three years old. Maria Theresia was the daughter of Archduke Karl (1771-1847), the victor of Aspern, and of Archduchess Henriette of Nassau-Weilburg (1797—1829).

The portrait is a slightly modified copy of a painting by Thomas Lawrence in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. In the copy, which he is thought to have executed in 1819, Daffinger adopted the English manner of painting, but deviated from the original in what the portrait expresses and in the execution of the park landscape in the background.

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