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Illustrated Plate No. 1 for Erasmus of Rotterdam's Treatise "Praise of Folly"

Daniel Chodowiecki

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-2842
Author: Daniel Chodowiecki
Name: Illustrated Plate No. 1 for Erasmus of Rotterdam's Treatise "Praise of Folly"
Country: Poland
Technique: etching
Material: paper
Dimensions: 16 x 9.8 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: 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

This work is the first illustrated plate (Tafel I) for the satirical treatise by Erasmus of Rotterdam "Praise of Folly" of 1509. In the original Ancient Greek – "Μωρίας ἐγκώμιον"; in Latin – "Moriae encomium"; in the later German version – "Lob der Narrheit".
It includes seven registers with allegorical images. The upper horizontal register depicts a traveller on horseback holding a staff with a small figure of a jester in his hand. At the top left is the inscription: "Pag 1 der Zueigung" – "Dedication" (Erasmus dedicated his treatise to Thomas More, in whose house he worked on this piece). Below is a vertical register, the central part of which is occupied by a full-face figure of a woman wearing a headdress decorated with feathers. In her hand, she holds a staff topped with a bust of a jester. At the bottom, a crowd of people is shown joyfully welcoming this woman – the personification of Folly. At the top left is the inscription: "p. 14. Die Narrheit" – "Folly". To the right of this register are three smaller ones, two of which are vertical. The left one features a black silhouette bust of a woman with feathers on her head. At the top left is the inscription: "p. 10. Der Narrheit" – "Folly" (noun in the genitive case). The right register contains a profile bust portrait of a woman with an infant. At the top left is the inscription: "Neotes" – "Youth", and on the right – "p. 25". In the register below these two, Cupid is depicted with a bow. At the top left is "p. 42.", and in the centre above the image – "Kupido". The bottom left register depicts a naked woman sitting on clouds, with two doves on a cloud to the left. At the top left is "p. 42.", and written in the centre above the image is "Venus". The bottom right register reproduces a full-length image of a woman in a long tunic walking to the left. At the top left is "p. 47.", and in the centre above the image – "Das Weib" ("Woman"). In Erasmus's treatise, she brings the joy of existence and saves Humanity from grim rationalism.

Inscriptions

At the bottom left, below the frame, is the artist's signature: "Gezeichnet und geätzt durch Daniel Chodowiecki in Dantzig 1780". At the top right, above the frame, is the number "I".

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Illustrated Plate No. 1 for Erasmus of Rotterdam's Treatise "Praise of Folly"

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