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Scene Depicting the Crusades (Jews in Worms Committing Murder and Suicide in the Face of Pursuing Crusaders)

Daniel Chodowiecki

  • Scene Depicting the Crusades (Jews in Worms Committing Murder and Suicide in the Face of Pursuing Crusaders) 1
  • Scene Depicting the Crusades (Jews in Worms Committing Murder and Suicide in the Face of Pursuing Crusaders) 2
  • Scene Depicting the Crusades (Jews in Worms Committing Murder and Suicide in the Face of Pursuing Crusaders) 1
  • Scene Depicting the Crusades (Jews in Worms Committing Murder and Suicide in the Face of Pursuing Crusaders) 2
Basic information
ID
Г-IV-1212
Author
Daniel Chodowiecki
Name
Scene Depicting the Crusades (Jews in Worms Committing Murder and Suicide in the Face of Pursuing Crusaders)
Date of creation
late 18th c.
Country
Germany
Technique
сopper engraving
Material
paper
Dimensions
9.7 x 5.7 cm (height x width)
Additionally
Type
graphic art
Genre
history painting
Plot
The Crusades
Provenance
Collection of Boleslaw Orzechowicz Transferred by the Lviv State Republican Historical Museum by order of the Ministry of Culture of the Ukrainian SSR in February 1961
Information about author
Author
Daniel Chodowiecki
Artist's lifetime
1726–1801
Country
Poland, Germany
Biography
Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki (1726, Gdańsk – 1801, Berlin) – a Polish-German artist, printmaker and painter, a master of etching and book illustration, a representative of the academic movement, and one of the leading exponents of sentimentalism in 18th-century German art.
The artist's father was a merchant, a descendant of a noble family. His mother came from a family of Swiss Huguenots. The young Daniel, continuing the family tradition, began working as a merchant. At the age of 17, he went to Berlin for a commercial apprenticeship, where he spent most of his life. Towards the end of his career, he became the director of the Prussian Academy of Arts (Preußische Akademie der Künste).
In the 1750s, the artist developed an interest in painting, and later in printmaking, becoming one of the leading book illustrators. Between 1770 and 1774, together with Johann Bernhard Basedow, the founder of the philanthropic movement in education, he worked on the four-volume publication "Elementary Textbook for Young People" ("Elementarwerk für die Jugend"). Chodowiecki created over 100 illustrations for it using the copper engraving technique, including some dedicated to the Crusades.
In 1781, the artist produced 12 illustrations for a play by Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann entitled "No More Than Six Dishes" ("Nicht mehr als sechs Schüsseln"). This comedy, with its strongly social-critical undertones, is considered one of the earliest outstanding dramatic works in German bourgeois literature.
Around 2,000 engravings by Chodowiecki on various subjects, executed in the techniques of etching and copper engraving, have survived to this day. One of his contemporaries wrote that, were it not for Chodowiecki's illustrations, countless books would never have found their readers. The artist created a large number of painted and graphic portraits, as well as genre scenes of burgher life, mostly executed in pen and ink. The total number of the artist's surviving drawings amounts to around 4,000.
Daniel Chodowiecki's works are held in Germany – at the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings) in Berlin, the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig, and the Städel Museum in Frankfurt; in Poland – at the National Museum in Gdańsk; in Ukraine – at Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery, Vasyl Stefanyk Lviv National Scientific Library of Ukraine and the Kharkiv Art Museum, as well as in museums in Washington, Madrid and London.
Object description
In May 1096, the forces of the Peasants' Crusade arrived in the city of Worms (in the historic region of the Palatinate in Germany). There, false rumours immediately began to circulate that the Jews were poisoning the wells. This provoked an attack on the Jewish community. Some of the Jews sought refuge in the palace of the local bishop. When the crusaders stormed the palace, the Jews were faced with a choice: convert to Christianity or die. Many of them chose a martyr's death. To prevent their children from falling prey to the crusaders – who would subject them to forced baptism or brutal murder – fathers and mothers killed their own children with their own hands, and then took their own lives.
The engraving depicts a room with a vaulted ceiling and faintly visible wall paintings. On the right, knights are shown storming into the palace, holding shields bearing crosses and raising their swords aloft. On the left is a scene depicting the suicides and the killings of their loved ones by the Jews. In the foreground on the right, the focus is on the figure of a woman raising a knife above a small, naked child.
Inscriptions
Below the image is the inscription: "Die Juden zu Worms tödten sich untereinan-/der im Angesicht/der sie verfolgenden Kreutz-/fahrer". On the reverse, at the top, are the inventory numbers of the Lviv Picture Gallery. Below, in the centre, are the inscriptions: "Do wypraw Krzyżowych", "Jacob. 945/ E. 945/ 3615/S.O.". At the bottom left is the round seal of the Lviv State Republican Historical Museum's holdings; on the right – the historical museum's inventory number.
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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