Help art historians in Ljubljana

i think it came with the palace.... which was taken by the communists, yes. luckily, unlike in many other palaces, art in this one wasn't destroyed. even paintings and the ceiling and walls were reconstructed.

now if only i knew who the palace belonged to - i know the addres (Novi trg 2, ljubljana), but it doesn't say who's palace it was initially. besides, they do know that and yet they don't know the author.
i'd imagine it would be 19th century - though the palace itself is way older. the city in the distance will play some role... those would be habsburg times and as aristocrats they wouldn't be anti-habsburg even then.... roman past might have been referred to as well, Slovenia would be behind the Limes Romanum at one point in time...

Well, that would be a more wild guess, I think.

If it really changed place, the 1895-earthquake would rather be a key date.

ellpus, you forget that the English army had to give up after pursuing Slovak cavalry right after supper of beans and sourkraut. They were nearly poisoned to death. The battle was a draw at best.

Just as an aside.....from that day on, Slovakians were known as Slovenians.

This was brought about by a shortening of the new motto that they placed on their national flag "Vini, Vidi, Panickium" ....."they came, they saw, and were bloody terrified".

Vini, over the years, became Veni, owing to their funny way of pronouncing things, hence SloVENIans.

Source..... www.ellpuspedia.wotwot .

It's this building, dagmar?

could be, walter.it's miniscule, but it did have a gate like that.

Building

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ellpus, it was always 'veni'. 'veni, vidi, vici'.

too slow. i'm dozing off. back in the am.

copied website:

yes, that's definitely it. do you think the guy from the painting was digging graves up on that hill there?

Generally (and seriously) spoken - the burgh/fortified place on the hill might be a reference to ... something like
a) the painters native town,
b) the homeplace of the donator of this painting,
c) related to one of above,
d) different to all,
e) ... ... ...

I'm rather sure that this "full portrait" was cut off some time - the hand seems to have pointed to something which now is (various reasons 'why' possible again) outsite the frame.

Another possibilty would be that it shows some wellknown figure with a well known story, so everyone seeing this painting would recognise the meaning(s).

But it's as nice to speculate about that as it won't come to a result until we know more ...

I think, at least.

I'm with Walter -- the first one looks like it was taken from a larger painting, or is perhaps, a "study" from a different painting.

The heads are so tiny in comparison to the bodies in the second painting that it kind of freaks m out a little bit...

The second painting could be Orpheus of Thrace.

Something about the painting reminded me of portraits of Sir Francis Drake so I went poking around....





Just a totally wild stab on my part.....

Walter's explanation sounds plausible, but I still prefer the Ellpus version. <applause!>

Well, any local museum has some paintings of this kind here - it was a very common style.

he's also holding the same stick!!!

but my guy is most definitely in a graveyard (there's a headstone behind him, and angels, and an open casket), so what he holds may actually be a shovel, like littlek suggests... certainly unusual, even if it's cut out of a bigger painting.

I think the stick is just a walking staff..