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Boleslaw II Orders Polish Ladies to Hold Puppies to Their Breasts

Daniel Chodowiecki

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-2702
Author: Daniel Chodowiecki
Name: Boleslaw II Orders Polish Ladies to Hold Puppies to Their Breasts
Country: Germany
Technique: etching
Material: paper
Dimensions: 8.4 x 5 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: history painting
Provenance: Purchased from O. Bushel, 1977

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 artist has illustrated one of the controversial episodes in ancient Polish history, as described in the chronicles of Wincenty Kadłubek (12th–13th centuries) and Jan Długosz (15th century). King Boleslaw II the Bold, having returned with his army from yet another campaign against Rus, learnt that his warriors' wives had been unfaithful to them and, whilst their husbands were away for a long time, had given birth to children out of wedlock. The king then ordered the women to tie puppies to their breasts and feed them with their milk instead of their own children. The engraver depicted this cruel punishment as a domestic scene. In the foreground on the right, the king extends his right hand, giving orders to the women standing on the left. Their expressions are calm and composed. The monarch, however, with soldiers depicted behind him, looks flamboyant. The scene is set against a backdrop of stone buildings, in front of which trees grow. Chroniclers embellished the bloodthirsty myths and gruesome tales of Boleslaw II's tyranny in the late Middle Ages and early Modern period to emphasise his cruelty and immorality.
This illustration forms part of the "Historical and Genealogical Calendar for the Leap Year 1796" (Historisch-genealogischer Kalender auf das Schalt-Jahr 1796), published in Berlin by Johann Friedrich Unger in collaboration with the Royal Prussian Calendar Deputation (Königl. Preuß. Kalender-Deputation).

Inscriptions

Below the image is the title of the work in German and French: "Boleslaw II zwingt die polnischen Frauen, / kleine Hunde in der Brust zu tragen. / Boleslaw II oblige les dames polonoises à / porter de petit chiens pendus à leur sein". Above the print, on the right and left, are illegible letters and numbers engraved by the artist. On the reverse, at the bottom – the inventory number of the Lviv Picture Gallery written in pencil.

Portrayed person