Frédéric Villot (1809-1875) after Eugène Delacroix: In the Jesuit Church of Glogau, 1848, Etching

Beschreibung: Frédéric Villot (1809 Lüttich - 1875 Paris) after Eugène Delacroix: In the Jesuit Church of Glogau, 1848, Etching

Technique: Etching on paper
Size: 25,9 x 20,1 cm, Additional sizes: Plate: 30 x c. 23 cm; Paper: 35 x 26 cm | 10 1/4 x 8 in
Inscription: lower inscribed, signed and dated: "Eug. Delacroix del. Fréd. Villot sculp 1848" and "L'eglise des Jésuites (Hoffmann.)"; lower right with collector's stamp Friedrich August II von Sachsen (Lugt no. 971), lower left with blind stamp

Condition: Good original condition, with a few foxspots at margins.

Description: On the model of Delacroix (drawing in the Kunsthalle Bremen): The drawing has a scene from the artist's history The Jesuit Church in G. on the subject, which appeared in 1816 in the first volume of E. T. A. Hoffmann's Night Pieces. Hoffmann had studied in Glogau in Lower Silesia and there he met the painter Alexander Molinari, who carried out renovation work in the Jesuit Church. In Hoffmann's story, the narrator sees the painter Bertold working in the church at midnight by torchlight and offers him his help. A conversation about art then develops. When asked whether he was not called to a higher activity, the painter replies: "Do you know the fable of Prometheus, who wanted to be a creator and stole fire from heaven to revive his dead figures? By referring to the hubris of Prometheus, he hints at a dark crime in his past. The next day, the first-person narrator finds out that the painter once loved a princess whom he had saved the life of in the revolution and whom he had finally married, but that his artistic power had dried up after that, so he got rid of his family. Whether he killed them remains uncertain. Delacroix has placed the conversation situation in a monochrome, eerie-looking play of light and shadow. In its pictorial elaboration, the sheet occupies a special position among Delacroix's watercolours and drawings.

Keywords: Romanticism, Figure, Genre, Artist Representation, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Nocturne, Art, Church Painter, Sublim

Zustand: Good original condition, with a few foxspots at margins. Hinweise: Romanticism, Figure, Genre, Artist Representation, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Nocturne, Art, Church Painter, Sublim Herkunft: Friedrich August II von Sachsen Abmessungen: 25,9 x 20,1 cm, Additional sizes: Plate: 30 x c. 23 cm; Paper: 35 x 26 cm | 10 1/4 x 8 in Name des Künstlers: Frédéric Villot (1809-1875) Medium: Etching on paper