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Proud of Ancestry. The "Dance of Death" Series

Daniel Chodowiecki

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-1239
Author: Daniel Chodowiecki
Name: Proud of Ancestry. 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 ninth engraving by the author's numbering in the "Dance of Death" series. It portrays an allegorical scene taking place inside an aristocratic house. A man of noble birth is attacked by a skeleton, which personifies both Death and a rival lineage. The aristocrat points with his hand towards his family coat of arms, which hangs on the wall. In his other hand, he holds a sword. The skeleton is also armed with a sword, but strikes at the man with a bone taken from the nobleman's family tomb. The artist himself describes the scene as follows: "Der Ahnenstolze Edelmann wird von seinem Gegner mit einem Knochen seines Stammhalters Todgeschlagen" – [The nobleman, proud of his ancestors, will be beaten to death by his rival with a bone from his own progenitor].

Inscriptions

Below the image is the inscription: "Der Ahnenstolze". On the reverse are the inscriptions: "N9", "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

Proud of Ancestry. The "Dance of Death" Series

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