Back

Phillis and Chloe

Daniel Chodowiecki

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-2715
Author: Daniel Chodowiecki
Name: Phillis and Chloe
Country: Germany
Technique: etching
Material: paper on a cardboard mount
Dimensions: 8.7 x 5 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: pastoral allegory
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 engraving was created for the Berlin pocket "Genealogischer Calender" for the year 1773. The scene illustrates a pastoral idyll by the Swiss poet and artist Salomon Gessner (1730–1788). "Idylls" ("Idyllen", 1770–1772) became the most famous poetry collection by this author. Daniel Chodowiecki later illustrated several of them.
Depicted here are Phillis and Chloe – young shepherdesses living in the lap of nature and conversing about the mysteries of love. In 18th-century sentimental poetry, these characters were drawn from antiquity. Phillis is seated at the bottom right beneath a spreading tree and points towards Chloe, who stands before her with her head bowed, holding a basket. Below are Phillis' words in French: "Cette corbeille vous est chère…… / je sais pourquoi" – [This basket is dear to you… and I know why]. They contain a hint that it is a gift from her beloved.

Inscriptions

On the reverse of the cardboard mount – the inventory number of the Lviv Picture Gallery written in pencil. Below the image, the title of the work is engraved: "Phillis à Chloé". Below on the right, the idyll number: "Id. XVII".

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Phillis and Chloe

Other