[Translate to English:] Graff
On the one hand, Graff produced the official, late baroque state portraits of the Saxon rulers, while on the other he won numerous portrait commissions from the aspiring bourgeoisie animated by the ideas of the Enlightenment. Contemporaries claimed that Graff could gaze into the “essence of the soul” and that he painted “not the body but the spirit”. In his self-portraits he documented not only his own mental and physical condition but also the state of his artistic development. The two self-portraits which depict him at the ages of 29 and 58 have recently been restored: after cleaning and reconstruction where necessary, numerous details can once again be appreciated and scrutinised.
