Porträt George Gordon Noel Byron, 6. Baron Byron, bekannt als Lord Byron (1788-1824)

Portrait of Lord Byron. The British poet, who is considered one of the most important representatives of English romanticism, is presented here as a half-figure in the three-quarter profile facing to the right. His head rests in profile on his left hand, he looks lost, dreamlike to the right. His right hand rests in his lap He wears no wig but short hair. His clothes are simple, with cloak above the right shoulder and a piece of jewelry, a gemstone perhaps, on the neck bone. The background seems to consist of an imaginative landscape. Lord Byron came to his title about the death of the Great Uncle and moved to his seat in the House of Lords in 1808. A year later, he made a Mediterranean trip from Lisbon to the coast of Asia Minor. On his return he published his first two longer poetry books, “Childe Harold 's Pilgrimage,” which made him suddenly known. After several arcades, he left London, settled briefly on Lake Geneva, went on to Venice and finally died as commander of Greek armed forces in the fight for freedom of the Greeks. His works with the so-called “Byronic Hero,” the self-interested loner, influenced many literati and artists, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche and Edgar Allan Poe. The sheet was executed by Josef Eduard Teltscher after Richard Westall’s drawn existence as lithography. In the Austrian National Library in Vienna there is a sideways version of C. Turner, published in London in 1815, which could have stimulated the stecher in the present sheet. Conversely, the engraving here may have influenced gymnasts. However, nothing more is known. Westall painted its way back in 1813, to the present leaf sideways oil painting that is now in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Signature: ground from Westall. gedr. Lith. Institute. lith. J. E. Teltscher. Caption: Lord Byron. (Stiftung Händel-Haus Halle Foundation)