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

Daniel Chodowiecki

  • Happy Ending. Illustration for A. Lafontaine's Work "Of Pride and Love" ("Aus Stolz und Liebe von Lafontaine")
Basic information
ID
Г-IV-2849
Author
Daniel Chodowiecki
Name
Happy Ending. Illustration for A. Lafontaine's Work "Of Pride and Love" ("Aus Stolz und Liebe von Lafontaine")
Country
Germany
Technique
etching
Material
paper
Dimensions
9.1 x 5.9 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
Illustration for the 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 "Almanach Taschenbuch zum geselligen Vergnügen für das Jahr 1797" ("Pocket Almanac and Guide to Sociable Leisure" for 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.
Depicted here is a couple in love – a young man and a young woman, holding hands and standing under a tree in a courtyard behind a wall. These are characters from Lafontaine's work – Egbert and Agnes (or Bertha in another version). Standing nearby is an elderly woman in a bonnet, and in front of them is a knight in armour and a helmet, for whom a servant is preparing a horse for departure to the city of Trier. The lovers say to the knight: "Sagt in Trier, dass ich glücklich sei; durch diese Hand glücklich / aus A. La Fontaine. S. 117" – [Tell them in Trier that I am happy; happy thanks to this hand / from A. Lafontaine. P. 117].
Inscriptions
Below the image on the right, the artist's signature and date are engraved: "D. Chodowiecki del. u. sculpsit 1796". Above the border on the right is the number "3".
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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