The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

Die Miniatur Über den Künstler

The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

DE
The Miniature About the Artist

Moritz Michael Daffinger

Albert Josef Theer

Albert Theer was the youngest of three sons of the gem cutter Josef Theer who immigrated with his family from Austria-Silesia to Vienna in 1820. Albert studied at the engraver’s school at the Academy. His brothers were painters, too, and also studied at the Academy. Although Robert was the most gifted of them and was very successful right up to the middle of the century, it seems that the brothers neither co-operated nor competed. 

This tiny portrait was painted on a moulded ivory sheet and attached to a button. Since there is a strong resemblance between this miniature and the illustrations of Daffinger’s self-portraits in Pirchan’s monograph it is highly probable that Theer copied a self-portrait by Daffinger; however, a specific model could not be found.1

D. O.

1 Cf. Pirchan, 1943, figs. 9 and 10 in the appendix: portraits by Albert Theer copying self-portraits of Daffinger. A self-portrait by Daffinger from 1836 in the Museum of History in Vienna (inv. no. HM 133.451) shows the sitter in a mirror-image pose compared to Theer’s copy.