Lepsius, Sabine: Porträt Emil Gustav Lisco

A representative half portrait of the well-known theologian Emil Gustav Lisco (1819-1887), since 1845 pastor at the Church of Mary in Berlin, later grounded and suspended due to theological differences, to the left in pastor’s ornat. Sabine Graef was confirmed by him, his daughter Hedwig Lisco was her childhood friend. The portrait falls into her apprenticeship with the Berlin painter Carl Gussow in 1884-1886, where she learned the artisan in a short time, at which the paternal studio had of course already laid foundations. This may be one of the first assignments to the young painter, perhaps mediated by her father. The fact that it was rather a bread work or a favoritism is also evident from the fact that, according to her own written testimonies, she did not remember the confirmation precisely as an “awakening” or confirmation of her artist, which she felt in her early days. Only one more portrait from this early period has been preserved, a youth portrait Walther Rathenaus, which expresses by far more its power and its will to shape itself, which also shows the self-portrait (Old National Gallery Berlin), which was also formed in 1885. Acquired as a donation of the Lisco family to the Berlin Museum in 1965. Referred to re. o. by hand, “Sabine Graef,” signed on the back of the wedge frame “Sabine Graef Gustav Lisco/1819-1897.” Literature: Berlin City Museum Foundation. Paintings II, 2. Bearb. Dominik Bartmann. Berlin 2004, No. 293 m. Fig. - Annette Dorgerloh: The artist couple Lepsius. On Berlin portrait painting around 1900. Berlin 2003, pp. 65, 88f., 104.