CHRISTOPH DIETELL

ALBERTUS II SAPIENS

CHRISTOPH DIETELL
Upper Palatinate 1690 – 1764 Graz

Etching on laid paper, signed Christ. Dietell sculpsit Graecy
27.5 × 17 cm / 10.8 × 6.7 in, with frame 40.5 × 29.5 cm / 15.9 × 11.6 in
Mounted under cream passepartout and presented in an ebonised frame, Austria, circa 1890

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Vienna

A PORTRAIT OF IMPERIAL LEGACY
Christoph Dietell’s engraving of Albertus II Sapiens offers a rare and refined expression of 18th-century Austrian historicism. Framed by an elaborate architectural cartouche and crowned with the heraldic mantle of imperial dignity, this profile portrait speaks not only to the prestige of its subject but to the cultural aspirations of the Habsburg revival in early modern Graz.

ALBRECHT II VON HABSBURG (1397–1439)
Born in Vienna, Albrecht II (known as Albrecht V as Duke of Austria) was the first Habsburg to unite the crowns of Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and Germany. He inherited Austria at the age of seven and quickly proved a capable ruler, strengthening the central authority and aligning himself with the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. His marriage to Sigismund’s daughter, Elisabeth of Luxembourg, brought him into the dynastic heart of Central Europe.

Upon the emperor’s death in 1437, Albrecht was elected King of Hungary, then of Bohemia and Germany, thus laying the foundation for centuries of Habsburg imperial dominance. His reign was brief but momentous: he led campaigns against the Hussites and the Ottomans, and issued anti-Jewish decrees that led to mass expulsions from Austrian lands. He died suddenly during a military campaign in Hungary in 1439.

His widow Elisabeth gave birth posthumously to their son Ladislaus the Posthumous, who would inherit the crowns of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary, though not without conflict. Their daughter Elisabeth married the Polish king Casimir IV, thus strengthening dynastic ties between the Habsburgs and the Jagiellonians. Through this marriage, the Habsburg bloodline entered the Polish and Lithuanian thrones, shaping the geopolitics of Eastern Europe for generations.

CHRISTOPH DIETELL (1690–1764)
Christoph Dietell, a copperplate and letter engraver active in the Habsburg lands during the first half of the eighteenth century, was born on March 8, 1690, in the Upper Palatinate of Bavaria, but his artistic formation and professional identity are firmly rooted in the Austrian milieu. The son of Stephan Dietell, himself an engraver, Christoph benefited from an early introduction to the technical rigors of his craft. His early training was complemented by formal education at the University of Vienna, where he is recorded as civis academicus, working in the service of the university's visual and ceremonial needs.
By the early 1730s, Dietell had relocated to Graz—then an important regional center for both ecclesiastical and secular patronage. This move proved decisive: it was here that his mature career unfolded, and where his name became associated with a wide range of printed material, from cartographic engravings to devotional images. His stylistic clarity and high degree of finish reflect both technical competence and a sensitivity to the expressive needs of religious and historical iconography.
His work is often signed “Christ. Dietell sculpsit Graecy”, signaling not only authorship but also the pride he took in his adopted city. Graz offered Dietell a clientele that ranged from the Jesuit colleges and local nobility to the growing market for private devotional prints—an audience that increasingly sought protective amulets and visual affirmations of faith.
He died in Graz in 1764, having secured a place—albeit modest—in the history of Austrian printmaking. His legacy was continued, at least in part, through his brother Franz Ambrosius Dietell, also active as an engraver in Vienna. Today, Christoph Dietell's works—especially those bearing the mark of Graz—stand as testament to the cultural life of Austria’s provinces and to the enduring appeal of devotional printmaking in the eighteenth century.