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Interior Scene. From the "Journey to Paris" ("Aus der Reise nach Paris") Series

Daniel Chodowiecki, Clemens Kohl

  • Interior Scene. From the "Journey to Paris" ("Aus der Reise nach Paris") Series
Basic information
ID
Г-IV-2831
Author
Daniel Chodowiecki Clemens Kohl
Name
Interior Scene. From the "Journey to Paris" ("Aus der Reise nach Paris") Series
Previous attributions
Family Circle
Country
Austria
Technique
etching
Material
paper
Dimensions
8.9 x 5.7 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.
Information about author
Author
Clemens Kohl
Author in the original
Clemens Kohl, Kliment Kohl
Artist's lifetime
1754–1807
Country
Czech Republic, Austria
Biography
Clemens (Kliment) Kohl (Czech – Kliment Kohl; 1754, Prague – 1807, Vienna) – a Czech-Austrian engraver, draftsman and illustrator. He graduated from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. He illustrated books for various publishers and created copperplate engravings based on works by famous masters and his own sketches. Empress Maria Theresa appointed him as her drawing tutor and, later – as the Imperial and Royal Court Engraver.
Object description
The scene is set in a modest room at a coaching inn, where a traveller has stopped for the night. He is dressed in travelling attire – boots and a doublet. The man sits relaxed in a chair at the table, with one leg crossed over the other and his hand resting on his chin. To his left sits an elderly woman in a bonnet, looking at a young person with a child in her arms who is approaching the table from the left. She is dressed in a long gown and is confidently pointing at something with her right hand. She appears to be the innkeeper. To the guest's right sits the innkeeper's eldest daughter, waiting obediently. The interior in which the scene unfolds looks rather humble: a low wooden ceiling with exposed beams and a tiled floor. Laundry is drying on a line strung between the walls. Light streams in through the window on the left, and the artist skilfully captures the way it plays across the figures. The work is a classic example of the genre scene from the early Classicist period.
The print was published in Becker's pocket almanac "Becker's Taschenbuch / Almanach" for the years 1798–1799.
Inscriptions
Below the image, on the left, the signature of Daniel Chodowiecki is engraved: "D. Chodowiecki del.". Below the image, on the right – the engraver's signature, place and date: "Cl. Kohl sc. Viennae 1798".
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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