Page - 299 - in Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg - Netzwerker der Kunstwelt

Rudolf von Eitelberger and Leopold Carl Müller 299 elicited sympathy, and references to social injustice.23 Beggars and blind men, when set in rural markets, as in the Szolnok Ungarische Marktszene (Waldheim’s, 1  February 1862) (fig.  5), also presented a prototype for the Markt in Cairo and referenced problems en- demic to both the East and West. By the 1870s many of his paintings, like Die letzte Tagesmühe (1872) depicting girls gathering river water, had become more ethnographic, albeit slightly romanticized.24 These were now in tune with the thematic orientation of the 1873 World’s Fair promoting indigenous Volk traditions in the Dual Monarchy. Commissioning an Egyptian Jahrmarkt It was, however, Müller’s first major Egyptian canvas, Lagernde Beduinen bei den Pyr- amiden, that initiated his relationship with Eitelberger (fig.  6). Together with Unter- richtsminister Karl von Stremayr, Eitelberger visited him (“ohne von mir eingeladen worden zu sein” according to Müller) in the fall of 1874 in the studio space he was shar- ing with Hans Makart.25 It was the fate of this painting that would initiate the epistolary exchange between the two men. Müller returned to Cairo in February while his canvas hung in the 1875 Künstlerhaus exhibition, believing that the picture would be sold to the government. Increasingly desperate for money, Müller asked Laufberger to enlist the as- sistance of Eitelberger, who made enquiries about the purchase with inconclusive results. He apologized for the absence of state support and lamented the fiscal crash that had driven so many good artists abroad.26 In Müller’s first letter to Eitelberger, he thanked him profusely and concluded with comments tailored to Eitelberger’s interest in histori- cal monuments and social politics. He recommended that Eitelberger visit Cairo as soon as possible if he wanted to see the old Arab city, since so much had been torn down and left for rubble, noting that the modern buildings resembled  – not those in Haussmann’s Paris on which they were modeled  – but the “Ringstraßenstyle”. He concluded with in- formation on the uprising in Darfur, describing the reports of Egyptian army victories as “purer Schwindel, eine vicekönigliche Börsespeculation.”27 This exchange established 23 Ibid., p.  46 and p.  49. For the context of Eitelberger’s views on moral-pedagogical genre see K.  A. Schröder, Kunst als Erzählung : Theorie und Ästhetik der Genremalerei, in : Wiener Biedermeier : Malerei zwischen Wiener Kongress und Revolution (exh. cat. Wien, Österreischische Galerie), Vi- enna 1993, pp.  9–34, esp. p.  14. 24 The painting Die letzte Tagesmühe was exhibited in the Vienna World’s Fair in 1873 and is in the collection of the Belvedere. 25 Müller to Laufberger, 2  April 1875, in : Zemen (ed.), Leopold Carl Müller (cit. n.  2), p.  198. 26 Eitelberger to Müller, 11  March 1875, in : Zemen (ed.), Leopold Carl Müller (cit. n.  2), p.  192. 27 Müller to Eitelberger, 12  March 1875, ibid., p.  193.