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Illustration for A. Lafontaine's Work "Of Pride and Love" ("Aus Stolz und Liebe von Lafontaine")

Daniel Chodowiecki

  • Illustration for A. Lafontaine's Work "Of Pride and Love" ("Aus Stolz und Liebe von Lafontaine")
Basic information
ID
Г-IV-2708
Author
Daniel Chodowiecki
Name
Illustration for A. Lafontaine's Work "Of Pride and Love" ("Aus Stolz und Liebe von Lafontaine")
Country
Germany
Technique
etching
Material
paper
Dimensions
8.6 x 6 cm (height x width)
Additionally
Type
graphic art
Genre
genre art
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
An illustration for a work by the German sentimentalist writer August Heinrich Julius Lafontaine (1758–1831) (not to be confused with the French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine) "Of Pride and Love". The work forms part of the "Pocket Almanac and Guide to Sociable Leisure" for the year 1797 (Almanach Taschenbuch zum geselligen Vergnügen für das Jahr 1797), published alongside Lafontaine's text by Wilhelm Becker's publishing house. The engravings in this series highlighted the popularity of the writer's works, which placed great emphasis on moral values and profound emotions.
The composition depicts a couple in love – a knight in armour and a young woman at his feet – who have withdrawn to a secluded spot beneath a rock overgrown with green bushes. These are characters from Lafontaine's work – Egbert and Agnes (or Bertha in another version). Their tender feelings are conveyed by the inscription beneath the image: "Wie glücklich bin ich riefen beyde" – [How happy I am! – both exclaimed].
This engraving is known, in particular, from the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Inscriptions
Below the image on the left, the artist's signature and date are engraved: "D. Chodowiecki del. 1796". In the lower margin – the title of the work: "Aus Stolz und Liebe von Lafontaine".
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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