Dragutin Rakovac (Biskupec, 1813 - Zagreb, 1854)


Zagreb Ivan Zasche (after a watercolour from the Rakovac family) 1855 Oil on canvas 87 x 68 cm On a greenish blue background the bust of a middle-aged man is shown to the waist, the body is turned a quarter to the right; the head is turned half to the left. His thick greyish hair combed to the back, beard and moustache connected through whiskers to hair, eyes pale blue. A black tie is tied over his white shirt, and he is wearing a dark grey waistcoat and brown tunic, decorated with red embroidery at the edges. His right hand is held inside the waistcoat. There is no signature. Dragutin Rakovac, bookseller and lawyer, joined the Illyrian Movement in 1835 and was the secretary of the Husbandry Society and the first curator of the National Museum, charged with the care of its holdings from 1842 to 1854. The painting was commissioned from Ivan Zasche for the National Museum; the money was collected in 1855 through a collection drive. M.Schneider, Portreti 1800-1870, Zagreb, 1973, page 107, catalogue number 182; M. Schneider, Slikar Ivan Zasche (1825-1863), Zagreb, 1975, page 145, catalogue number 75; Hrvatski narodni preporod, (exhibition catalogue), Zagreb, 1985, pages 244-245, catalogue number 1039. In the entire history of the Museum only five paintings were commissioned with the aim of including them in the collections of the National Museum, namely the portrait of Dragutin Rakovac in 1855, the portraits of Francis Joseph I, Josip Jelacic and Juraj Haulik in 1858 (all from the painter Ivan Zasche), and finally, the portrait of Josip Juraj Strossmayer, from the painter Josip Franjo Mucke in 1871.




HPM/PMH-002756