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Courtesan. The "Dance of Death" Series

Daniel Chodowiecki

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-1230
Author: Daniel Chodowiecki
Name: Courtesan. The "Dance of Death" Series
Date of creation: 1770s; first printing – 1791
Country: Germany
Technique: сopper engraving
Material: paper
Dimensions: 8.6 x 5 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: allegory
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

This depicts the third engraving by the author's numbering in the "Dance of Death" series. It portrays an allegorical scene in which a skeleton on the right, personifying Death, has grabbed a beautifully dressed young woman by the arm and is lashing her with a whip. She is a prostitute, protected by an elderly madam: she holds the girl close and stares in horror at the assailant. With her left hand, the protector holds out a vial of unknown contents towards the skeleton, attempting to divert Death from the young lady. In the background, seen from behind, are two men – the prostitute's clients – who are fleeing. Above them, bats fly in the clouds. The artist himself describes the scene as follows: "Das Freudenmädchen, der Tode geisselt es mit den franz: Lilien der Lustseuche, die Hausmutter sucht ihn umsonst mit dem Mercurius Flaschgen zu verscheuchen. Die Liebhaber laufen lamentirend davon." – [The prostitute, whom Death scourges with the French lilies of the venereal plague, while the madam vainly attempts to drive her away with a vial of mercury. The lovers flee, lamenting].

Inscriptions

Below the image is the inscription: "Das Freudenmädchen". On the reverse are the inscriptions: "N3", "Chodowiecki SC", "662", "KO/N". 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 and the inventory numbers of the Lviv State Picture Gallery.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Courtesan. The "Dance of Death" Series

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