Max Schödl (2 February 1834 – 23 March 1921) was an Austrian painter known primarily for still life. After working early on as a portrait and genre painter, he turned in the 1870s to small-scale arrangements of decorative objects, especially porcelain, metalwork, textiles, arms, books, and antiques. His paintings are associated with East Asian decorative arts in late nineteenth-century Vienna.
Life and career Schödl was born in Vienna, where he also received his artistic training. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and worked with the still-life painter Friedrich von Friedländer.
He joined the Künstlerhaus in 1869 and remained connected to the institution for much of his career. Later accounts note that he was recognized there as both a benefactor and a founding member, and that from 1904 he also belonged to the Künstlerhaus Watercolorists’ Club.
By around 1870 Schödl had largely given up portrait and genre painting in favor of still life. These works, often modest in scale, typically focus on the close description of collected objects and interior studio props rather than on expansive settings or narrative scenes.
Work Schödl’s mature paintings usually center on carefully arranged objects—ceramics, lacquerware, metal vessels, embroidered fabrics, weapons, books, and other decorative pieces—painted with a high degree of finish. A number of his still lifes incorporate objects identified with East Asian or “Orientalist” taste, reflecting collecting habits and interior fashions current in Vienna during the period.
Studio and collecting Schödl was also a collector, and his own studio appears to have supplied both subject matter and setting for a number of his paintings. The Wien Museum holds his Atelier des Stilllebenmalers Max Schödl (1897), a studio interior that reflects the dense accumulation of objects associated with his work. A separate auction catalogue entry for Schödl’s Mein Atelier likewise describes an interior crowded with antiques and porcelain and suggests that a self-portrait may be included within the composition.
References