6528 - Chodowiecki, Daniel Nikolaus

Chodowiecki, Daniel Nikolaus Studies for the jailer in “The Farewell of Jean Calas to His Family.” Black chalk, with traces of white highlights, on gray handmade paper. 16.5 x 19.2 cm. Inscribed and dated in the artist’s own hand (over an incompletely erased inscription with a different text) “Study of the Jailer, 1767.” Chodowiecki owes his artistic breakthrough to the 1767 painting “The Farewell of Jean Calas” and the two etchings based on it (Engelmann 48). The work refers to the story of the Protestant cloth merchant Jean Calas, who in 1762 was wrongfully accused of murdering his son in Toulouse due to religious intolerance and was cruelly executed. This miscarriage of justice stirred the emotions of people throughout Europe immensely. Chodowiecki thus struck a chord with his emotionally charged depiction of the Calas family’s farewell in prison shortly before the sentence was carried out. Presented here is a sheet featuring full-figure and detailed studies of the jailer, who is shown on the right of the picture locking the gate at the foot of the Calas. Provenance: Eugenie Rosenberger Collection, Kösen. M. Stechow Collection, Berlin. Her auction at C. G. Boerner, Leipzig, November 10–13, 1919, Lot 89. Amsler & Ruthardt, Berlin, auction October 28–29, 1924, Lot 54. Galerie Bassenge, Berlin, Auction 62, 1996, Lot 5552. Lit.: Ludwig Kaemmerer: Chodowiecki, Vol. XXI, Bielefeld/Leipzig 1897, p. 99, Fig. 153. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.