Lot 64: Ription Thomas Friedrich Gedon (1728 - 1767 active

Ription Thomas Friedrich Gedon (1728 - 1767 active in Vienna and Lower Austria) Two still lifes - copper and brass vessels and tableware with meat and sausages, pendants, one signed at lower right T: Gedohn: K: K Camer Mahler Pinx., oil on canvas, each 64 x 82 cm, framed, (2), (Wo) Provenance: Viennese private collection These two still lifes of superior quality are singular examples in the oeuvre of Gedon, who was known for his religious subjects and portraits. The masterful and sensitive rendering of the different textures and materials testifies to Gedon's having been an ingenious observer who need not shy away from comparison to the best German painters of still lifes of his day. Having studied at the Vienna Academy, Thomas Friedrich Gedon was active as a painter of canvases and frescoes in Vienna and Lower Austria. In 1732 he was awarded the Academy's Grand Prix for his Judgement of Solomon. In 1751 he was appointed Honorarius Academicus and in 1754 was added to the list of "einverleibte Herrn Acad mici". In 1755 he was appointed chamber painter to the emperor. Literature occasionally mentions Gedon as having been a student of Daniel Gran, which is sufficiently corroborated by the style in which he executed the frescoes and oil paintings for the former Augustinian monastery of St. Pölten, today's cathedral. The ceiling frescoes and the ten wall paintings in the cathedral of St Pölten (inscribed THOM. FRI. GEDON PINX.), executed by Gedon in 1738/39, constitute his most comprehensive and significant project. Further works attributable to Gedon are in the parish churches at Böheimkirchen, Mank, St. Christophen, St. Georgen am Steinfeld, and Weissenkirchen an der Perschling. Secured paintings by that artist are preserved at the Städtisches Museum in Baden near Vienna (a portrait of the Augustinian prior Gottfried Claa), in a private collection in Florida, USA (Christ on the Cross), and at the Diözesanmuseum in St. Pölten. We thank Dr. Johann Kronbichler, Director of the Diözesanmuseum, St. Pölten, for his asistance in compiling the artist's biography.