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Scene Depicting the Crusades (Children of the Crusaders and the Saracens Become Soldiers and Fight Against One Another)

Daniel Chodowiecki

  • Scene Depicting the Crusades (Children of the Crusaders and the Saracens Become Soldiers and Fight Against One Another) 1
  • Scene Depicting the Crusades (Children of the Crusaders and the Saracens Become Soldiers and Fight Against One Another) 2
  • Scene Depicting the Crusades (Children of the Crusaders and the Saracens Become Soldiers and Fight Against One Another) 1
  • Scene Depicting the Crusades (Children of the Crusaders and the Saracens Become Soldiers and Fight Against One Another) 2
Basic information
ID
Г-IV-1216
Author
Daniel Chodowiecki
Name
Scene Depicting the Crusades (Children of the Crusaders and the Saracens Become Soldiers and Fight Against One Another)
Date of creation
late 18th c.
Country
Germany
Technique
сopper engraving
Material
paper
Dimensions
9.6 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
The claim that there was a battle between Christian and Muslim children during the Crusades is a historical myth, which arose from medieval legends. Chodowiecki depicts the scene of this children's battle in a grotesque manner. In the foreground, adult crusaders and Muslim warriors are goading armed children into fighting, and they are fiercely killing one another. Some of the young ones are already lying dead.
Armed men, who rather resemble theatregoers, are watching this spectacle from the city walls. In the background, in the centre beyond the city walls, stands a domed structure resembling a temple without a cross or a crescent. As a philanthropist, the artist uses this composition to clearly highlight the absurdity of both the fictional event itself and the Crusades in general.
Inscriptions
Below the image is the inscription: "Die Kinder der Kreutzfahrer und den/ Sarazenen werden Soldaten und streiten/ miteinander". 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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