Page - 309 - in Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg - Netzwerker der Kunstwelt

Rudolf von Eitelberger and Leopold Carl Müller 309 This drama, with Müller extremely embarrassed about his delays, proceeded simulta- neously with Eitelberger’s determined efforts to lure him back to Vienna as a professor. This, indeed, seems to have always been his ultimate goal, for which the commission served as a strategic means. Eitelberger’s initial offer of a professorship in 1874 had been rejected, but he renewed the invitation in November 1876 via the intermediary of Pet- tenkofen, knowing that Müller’s financial hardships might motivate him to reconsider. In a letter that December, Eitelberger candidly discussed the need for “eine Lehrkraft, welche den modernen Anschauungen Rechnung trägt […].”65 This is perhaps a refer- ence to Müller’s “Naturwahrheit” which Eitelberger praised in his 1881 article : “Die Natur zu verschönern, zu frisiren und zu schmücken oder zu stylisiren, ist nicht seine Sache.”66 In the official report to the Kaiser from 1877, Eitelberger emphasized his “ausgezeichnete künstlerische Individualität, welche überdies eine Richtung vertritt, die an der Wiener Akademie eine specielle Pflege bisher nicht erfahren hat.”67 Müller re- mained ambivalent, deeply concerned with a loss of freedom since, as he later wrote to Laufberger, he always lived “mit dem Motive” and would lose his abilities in an academy studio.68 Eitelberger’s intense desire to hire Müller eventually worked in the painter’s favor and he was able to secure an agreement granting him a winter leave in addition to the summer vacation. He was appointed in June 1877 to begin teaching that fall in the general school and to run a Special School. No sooner had the contract been signed, though, than Müller began contemplating a postponement of his arrival in Vienna. Having already committed to Georg Ebers to complete forty drawings in Egypt  – as well as British commissions from Wallis  – he agonized over his decision and the prospect of approaching Eitelberger, mindful also of the still unfinished Markt in Cairo. In the end, desperation led him to placate Ei- telberger with statements of tenuous truthfulness, guaranteed to appeal to him. Müller wrote that he was looking forward to teaching dedicated students “[das] Studium der Natur, und der unerreichten alten Meister”.69 In an outright lie, he announced that this would be his last trip to Cairo because he had decided “in Wien ein ganz anderes Genre zu kultiviren”. Anyway, he concluded, “hat der Orient nicht viele Liebhaber in Österre- ich.”70 Eitelberger concurred, at least with regard to Orientalist painting, citing the fate of those by Makart and Carl Rudolf Huber which “sind absolut unmöglich in Wien”. 65 Eitelberger to Müller, 26  December 1876, in : Zemen (ed.), Leopold Carl Müller (cit. n.  2), p.  277. 66 Eitelberger, Leopold  K. Müller (cit. n.  4), p.  406. 67 Der Vortrag des Ministers Stremayer an den Kaiser, 10  June 1877, signed by Stremayr but written by Eitelberger, in : Zemen (ed.), Leopold Carl Müller (cit. n.  2), p.  306. 68 Müller to Laufberger, 25  October 1877, ibid., p.  327. 69 Müller to Eitelberger, 23  June 1877, ibid., p.  308. 70 Ibid., pp.  308 f.