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This watercolor portrait acquired in September 2020 at a US antique store, showing an elderly gentleman with a Knight Cross of Austro-Hungarian Order of St.Stephen turned out to be a rare representation of famous Austrian lawyer from the turn of the 19th century and for a while Rector of Vienna University, Anton von Zeiller.

Executed by the leading Viennese portraitist Lieder in ca. 1820 (according to Zeiller's visual age) this miniature portrait is a very important addition to the iconography of this celebrated man.

Franz Anton Felix Zeiller (in 1797 ennobled to Edler von Zeiller ("Edler" was the lowest noble title in Austria)) was born in 1751 in Graz (see one of our images showing his birth house) as son of a merchant. He achieved the degree of a doctor of philosophy in 1768 and afterwards moved to Vienna to study law. His teacher there became famous legal scholar Karl Anton von Martini. Being sponsored by the latter he obtained also a degree of a doctor of law in 1778 and became a teacher at the Vienna University. In 1790 he obtained rank of a state councillor. In 1802 he became a court councillor at Austrian Top Juridical Body. In 1803/04 and 1807/08 he was Rector of Vienna University. His Knight Cross of St.Stephen he received in 1810.

He died on 23rd August 1828 and was buried at the Hietzing Cemetery by Vienna.

Friedrich Johann Gottlieb Lieder (1780 Potsdam - 1859 Budapest), called Franz Lieder, was a very well-known Austro-German portraitist, portrait miniature painter and lithograph artist of the first half of the 19th century, father of another well-known portraitist Friedrich Lieder the Younger (1807-1884). He was born in Potsdam in 1780 and already at the age of 17 in 1797 debuted in the Academical Exhibition of Berlin. In 1802 he exhibited a portrait of Napoleon in Potsdam and moved to Paris in 1804 to become pupil of David at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He was then active in Budapest as a popular portraitist of the Hungarian aristocracy and further painted portraits in Pressburg (Bratislava) and Tyrnau. From 1810 he lived in Vienna where he was strongly influenced by works of the famous French miniaturist Johann Baptiste Isabey. The Vienna Congress (1815-1816) brought him special popularity as portraitist. From 1820 the artist was active alternately in Vienna and Budapest. In 1824 he became member of the Vienna Academy. Lieder died in 1859 in Budapest. He can be seen as one of the best Austrian portrait painters. Many of his works belong to collections of major international museums such as the Metropolitan Art Museum, New York, etc.

Condition: fairly good; in original frame (glass is lost)

Creation Year: ca 1820

Measurements: UNFRAMED: 13.8cm x 10.4cm / 5.4in x 4.1in FRAMED: 24.2cm x 20.7cm / 9.5in x 8.1in

Object Type: Framed miniature

Style: Portrait Miniatures

Technique: watercolor on card (oval)

Inscription: signed: F.Lieder; on verso: old legend