Lot 323: Johann Georg Platzer (St. Michael in Eppan/South

Johann Georg Platzer (St. Michael in Eppan/South Tyrol 1704 - 1761) Merry-making party drinking wine and dancing outdoors, 24.5 x 31.5 cm, framed, (Wo) Johann Georg Platzer is the most brilliant representative of the Viennese Rococo and the most significant practitioner of elegant 18th-century genre and society painting in the German-speaking area. In terms of freshness and vivacity, his best paintings are only equalled by those of his painter friend Franz Christoph Janneck, who came from Graz and was also active in Vienna. The delightful humour that marks many of his genre scenes is also revealed in the present picture, where an elegant cocotte embraces a corpulent gentleman and hands him a glass of wine, while a young boy steals the man's purse from his pocket. Platzer had come to Vienna from the sleepy South-Tyrolean village of Eppan at a time when Austria had risen to great power after the victory over the Ottoman troops and the War of the Spanish Succession. The last imperial buildings, such as St. Charles's Church and the Belvedere Palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy, were about to be completed. Karl Plunger writes: "The political consolidation of the empire, its unfolding power, the splendour at the court of Emperor Charles VI, the easy-goingness of the aristocracy and the higher bourgeoisie, and many festive celebrations - this was the atmosphere that was to influence Platzer's art." (Karl Plunger, Johann Georg Platzer - Der Rokokomaler aus dem Überetsch, 1986, p. 6).