»If only the world had half of my noblesse ...«

Feuerbach was deeply imbued with the earnestness of art. The »imposing dignity« of his model Anna Risi, who is featured here, enabled him to work on important subjects – which were the only ones he wished to paint. He chanced upon Anna Risi in 1860 in Trastevere, a poor district in Rome, and she sat for an »Iphigenia«, or a portrait of »fair majesty«, as the artist once wrote. Indeed, Feuerbach expressed his longing for the world of antiquity and its ideals in numerous classical compositions.