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Men's Whims. Illustration for "Gedichte von Ph. Gatterer" ("Poems by Philippine Gatterer")

Daniel Chodowiecki

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-1240
Author: Daniel Chodowiecki
Name: Men's Whims. Illustration for "Gedichte von Ph. Gatterer" ("Poems by Philippine Gatterer")
Country: Germany
Technique: etching
Material: paper
Dimensions: 10.7 x 6.2 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: genre art
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 work is an illustration for the plot "Men's Whims" from the poetry collection "Gedichte von Ph. Gatterer" ("Poems of Philippine Gatterer") by the German writer Philippine Gatterer (married name – Engelhard). A dramatic domestic scene takes place in the interior of a wealthy family's house. In the centre, a young mistress is depicted, having fallen to the floor in despair. A maid has bent over her, trying to help. However, the compositional focus of the work is the figure of a huge dog, probably a mastiff. Raising its tail, it calmly bypasses the chaotic scene. Chairs in the Rococo style stand against the wall, and on the right – a table covered with a patterned tablecloth. On the left, a stream of light pours from the window onto the characters.
The original plate of this work is kept in the Louvre in the Department of Graphic Arts (Paris).

Inscriptions

In the bottom left corner of the print, there is an engraved artist's signature: "D. Chodowiecki inv. & sc". Written by hand in pencil below are the gallery inventory numbers.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Men's Whims. Illustration for "Gedichte von Ph. Gatterer" ("Poems by Philippine Gatterer")

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