Resting Hunter Knight Leopold Gundaker von Suttner

The painting is a study for one of four large-size portraits commissioned from Franz Anton Palko by the von Suttners around 1754. The canvases were intended for the palace in Kirchstetten on the Thaya. The small picture featuring a young hunter portrays Leopold Gundaker von Suttner, Imperial Court Counsel and son of Matthiass von Suttner. Matthiass, the physician of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, was ennobled in 1715. The family seems to have commissioned the portraits to represent its recent elevation to the nobility. All the paintings were probably ordered by Marie Anna Juliana von Suttner, the wife of the late Leopold Gundaker. Palko painted the canvases at the time of his settlement in Vienna where he was acknowledged as an accomplished portraitist.