Franz Eisenhut

Franz Eisenhut (Hungarian: Eisenhut Ferencz; Serbian Cyrillic: Франц Ајзенхут; 25 January 1857 – 2 June 1903) was a prominent Danube Swabian Realist and Orientalist painter. He is considered one of Austria-Hungary’s greatest academic painters in the second half of the 19th century. His most famous and recognizable paintings include Death of Gül Baba, Battle of Zenta, Slave trade and Cock fighting and many other, depicting mostly motifs from the Orient. His works can be found in many European museums across the continent.

Franz Eisenhut was born in Nova Palanka, Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar, Austrian Empire (today Bačka Palanka, Vojvodina province, Serbia) in a German family. His father, Georg Eisenhut was from Palanka, and his mother Theresia Sommer was from Bukin.

His father had hoped for Franz to become a merchant, but the Hungarian painter Telepy Károly discovered his talent for painting. Influential citizens of Palanka at the time, led by lawyer Karl Mezey and pharmacist Karlo Harliković, collected money for his studies. He studied at Hungarian Royal Drawing School in Budapest from 1875 until 1877. Afterwards, he became a student of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He studied there until 1883 in class of Gyula Benczúr, the Hungarian painter.

After finishing the Academy, he went on a trip to the Orient for the first time, visiting the Caucasus. The next year, he held his first exhibition in Budapest. The Orient became his main source of inspiration and Orientalist paintings will become his most famous works. In 1883 and 1884, he went to the Caucasus once again, visiting Tbilisi and Baku. In 1886 and 1887, he traveled from Naples to Tunisia and Algeria. His first great success was the 1886 painting “Healing through the Koran in Beirut”.