PORTRET AUSTRIJSKOG ČASNIKA IZ OSTAVŠTINE MIRKA RAČKOG
A PORTRAIT OF AN AUSTRIAN OFFICER – A PAINTING FROM THE ESTATE OF MIRKO RAČKI

Summary/Abstract: A Portrait of an Austrian Officer, completed in 1852, is part of the collection of paintings in the estate of the renowned painter Mirko Rački. Today it is the property of the Association of the People of Poljica Principality and is kept in the municipal council building in the town of Podstrana near Split. Rački died in Split in 1982. Under various circumstances, some of the paintings from his collection became part of Dalmatia’s artistic heritage. Rački’s valuable painting collection significantly decreased in the period from his relocation from Zagreb to Split in 1975 and following the death of his wife Smiljka in 1988 in Belgrade. This paper discusses the history of Mirko Rački’s painting collection, until the year 1989 when probate proceedings took place in order to divide his estate. In 1986 Smiljka Rački donated her late husband’s collection of paintings to the Association of the People of Poljica Principality. A Portrait of an Austrian Officer was part of that collection. Analysis of the painter’s signature led the paper’s author to identify the painter as Karl Nagel, an Austrian portrait painter who was active in the mid-19th century in Linz and Vienna. Based on the writings on the stretcher, archival and genealogical sources, as well as an analysis of the portrayed officer’s uniform (in cooperation with an expert in Austrian military history), the author concludes that this painting depicts Joseph Nitsche, grandfather of Mirko Rački’s first wife Lina Schwaab von Wildenfried. In 1850, Joseph Nitsche gained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the 3rd Artillery Regiment of the Austrian Imperial Army. Shortly afterwards he left military service, and two years later he commissioned his own portrait in the uniform of the artillery Lieutenant Colonel. This is that very same painting now owned by the Association of the People of Poljica Principality. Although A Portrait of an Austrian Officer from the said collection belongs to the Austrian cultural and artistic milieu, its analysis gives us additional insight into the life and work of Mirko Rački, revealing details about his cosmopolitan life, especially the last few years of his life in Split.

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