Lot 2512 Dα

Born in Wildenfels in the Erzgebirge in 1788, Carl Christian Vogel began to attend the Academy in Dresden in 1806. Two years later, he accompanied the Livonian Baron von Löwenstern to St. Petersburg, where he remained for four years as a portrait painter. It was here that he laid the foundations for his over 700 sheet collection of portraits of famous contemporaries, including the then 75 year old Goethe. Vogel returned to Dresden in 1812, before travelling to Rome in 1813, where he remained for seven years working as an artist.
Upon his return in 1820, he received a professorship at the Dresden Academy. This was followed by his appointment as court painter in 1824, where he was raised to aristocracy in 1831 and given the title “von Vogelstein”. Although the present work, depicting Elisabeth of Saxony aged four, was painted three years after this, he still signed it with his common name.
Princess Maria Elisabeth Maximiliana Ludovika Amalie Franziska Sophia Leopoldine Anna Baptista Xaveria Nepomucena of Saxony was the second daughter of King Johann I of Saxony (1801–1873) and his wife, Princess Amalie August of Bavaria (1801–1877). She was born in Dresden in 1830 and married Prince Ferdinand Maria of Savoy-Carignan, Duke of Genoa (1822-1855), in Dresden in 1850. The marriage resulted in two children, Margaret of Italy and Thomas Albert Victor, second Duke of Genoa. Following her husband’s early death, Elisabeth entered into a marriage with a man of significantly lower standing: her Chamberlain, the Italian aristocrat Nicolo Giuseppe Effisio, Marchese Rapallo (1825-1882). The two were wed in secret, marrying in Agliè in 1856, before the official period of mourning for Elisabeth’s late husband had ended. Her brother-in-law Viktor Emanuel II considered this improper conduct such an affront that he practically sent Elisabeth into exile. He also forbid her from seeing her two children, but they were later reunited. Elisabeth’s second marriage was said to be unhappy, and remained childless. She died in Stresa on the Lago Maggiore in 1912 at the age of 82.