Master Drawings New York

This finely observed self-portrait shows Julius Hübner at twenty-two. A Romantic polymath (painter, poet, and thinker), he is, here, at the threshold of his career. Dressed in a plain waistcoat with a high collar and neat cravat, he turns his head slightly to the right. The wavy hair is carefully groomed, the gaze direct yet reflective, hinting at both confidence and introspection.

This drawing dates to the artist’s first creative period. It was made three years after his initial breakthrough in 1825 with Ruth and Boaz, in the same year as his acclaimed painting The Fisherman (1828); and precedes his tender portrait of Pauline, his wife and the sister of his close friend Eduard Bendemann, which dates from 1829. When set alongside his self-portrait in oil from 1859, the present drawing offers a telling comparison between the youthful artist and the seasoned painter three decades later.

Hübner’s control of the pencil is assured and meticulous. Highlights catch the chin, nose, and eyes; the texture of hair, lips, and collar is handled with a draughtsman’s discipline, tempered by a natural ease. The result is both a likeness and a statement of character. The pose recalls a double portrait with Eduard Bendemann made the previous year in 1827, and also the fabulous ‘Schadow Circle’ group portrait dating to 1830-1831. Yet here the focus is entirely on himself; a quiet study in self-awareness at a moment of personal and artistic formation.

Born in Silesia, a Prussian province, in 1806, Hübner trained at the Berlin Academy under Wilhelm Schadow before following him to Düsseldorf in 1826, where he joined Theodor Hildebrandt, Karl Friedrich Lessing, and Karl Sohn. After travels in Italy in 1830, he worked in Berlin and Düsseldorf before accepting a post at the Dresden Academy in 1839, later becoming its Professor of Historical Painting. In 1871 he was appointed Director of the Dresden Gallery of Paintings, a role he held until retirement. Celebrated for his religious and historical works central to the Düsseldorf School Hübner brought to them a poet’s sensibility and a thoughtful realism. This portrait reflects those qualities: disciplined in execution, lyrical in spirit, and marked by a quiet warmth.