- Museum number
- 1863,0613.2255
- Title
- Object: Lippert and Zingg
- Description
-
Interior with two men, Lippert and Zingg conversing in the centre of the room; Chodowiecki is seated at a table in the background to right; first state with a remarque showing pastoral landscape with lettering on a boulder 'TRES FACIUNT COLEGIUM'. 1798
Etching
- Production date
- 1798
- Dimensions
-
Height: 199 millimetres
-
Width: 154 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Text from Antony Griffiths and Frances Carey, 'German Printmaking in the Age of Goethe'. BM 1994, no. 27i :
The double portrait of Lippert and Zingg (see: 1863,0613.2255-2257; 1863,0613.2259) was drawn, according to the lettering below, in Dresden in 1773, although the print itself was not executed for another twenty-five years. It records an episode from Chodowiecki's visit to Dresden and Leipzig in the autumn of 1773, which was only his second journey outside Berlin in thirty years. The initial reason for this excursion was a valuation he had been asked to make by the dealer, Gotzkowsky, of the paintings collection of the Countess Cosel, in Saabor, Silesia; this paid commission gave him the opportunity to stop in Dresden and Leipzig on the way back and he kept a diary of all that took place (though no visual record as he had done for his previous journey to Danzig earlier that year. See 'Chodowiecki in Dresden und Leipzig. Das Reisetagebuch des Künstlers vom 27 Oktober bis 15 November 1773', ed. Moritz Stübel, Dresden 1920). His account is an invaluable source of information on his personal and professional relationships, the milieu of the art world in these two cities, the contents of the many collections he was avid to see and the activities revolving around printmaking, print publishing and print collecting.
On 3 November, Chodowiecki, together with his friend, Adrian Zingg, paid a visit to the home of Philip Daniel Lippert (1702-85), who, since 1764, had been in charge of the Antique collections at the Dresden Academy. He was particularly renowned for his expertise in the study of engraved gems, to which Goethe refers in his account of his own education at Leipzig 1766-69, and Chodowiecki, who was shown Lippert's collection, has included the cabinet of gems in the background of the print. He has chosen to represent himself to the right of the composition, in a manner precisely similar to that in his portrait of his family, the 'Cabinet d'un Peintre' of 1772 (1863,0613.155). Lippert on the left, who was known to be hard of hearing, is being addressed by Zingg to whom Chodowiecki showed what he described as his 'caricature' the next day, apparently acceding to Zingg's request to give him the drawing.
The Swiss born artist, Adrian Zingg, was an important draughtsman and printmaker in his own right, who exercised a considerable influence on the development of landscape composition in Saxony (see Griffiths & Carey 1994 p.47). Together with Anton Graff (see 1991,0720.107) and the collector, von Vieth, he was a vital contact for Chodowiecki in Dresden throughout his career, and amassed one of the most complete collections of the latter's work; Chodowiecki's decision to turn his earlier drawing into a print in 1798 may well have been intended as a testament to his long and valued friendship with Zingg. In 1789, Chodowiecki renewed his acquaintance with the Dresden collections in the company of Graff and Zingg, on a journey undertaken with his eldest son, Wilhelm, his son-in-law, the pastor Jacques Papin, and another artist from Berlin, A. L. Krüger (see 'Chodowiecki. Journal gehalten auf einer Lustreyse von Berlin nach Dresden', ed. Richard Hamann and Edgar Lehmann, Berlin 1961).
27(i) Plate B, first state
Remarque showing pastoral landscape with lettering on a boulder "TRES FACIUNT COLEGIUM"
27(ii) Plate B, second state, IIa
Remarque with two figures riding across a landscape
27(iii) Plate B, second state, IIb
Remarque with same figures as above with the castle and bridge at Meissen in the background.
27(iv) Plate B, fourth state
Remarque with a company of figures dining round a table on the right and a view of Dresden through the window to the left.
The first plate for 'Lippert and Zingg' (plate A), judging by the impression in the British Museum's collection, was abandoned by the artist because he was dissatisfied with the drawing and the subsequent biting of the plate; in a letter to Anton Graff, dated 8-9 October 1798, Chodowiecki describes it as an "unsuccessful plate" (Steinbrucker, 1921, p. 184). Elaborate remarques were added to the lower margins of the first plate and to all but the
third of the four states of the second plate of 'Lippert and Zingg'. The remarques are typical of a practice first adopted by Chodowiecki for a very few impressions of his series of illustrations to Lessing's 'Minna von Bamhelm' in 1769 (E.52). However, once he had established a press on his own premises in 1791 in order to have complete control over his plates, Chodowiecki increasingly embellished the margins of his compositions with an eye to the very considerable collectors' market for his work. Huber and Rost described this development in 1797: "For some years there has grown a large number of collectors who take pleasure in finding and completing his oeuvre; but now they complain that their endeavour is made rather difficult because M. Chodowiecki (perhaps from an undue consideration to certain amateurs who wish to have preference over others) M. Chodowiecki I say, delicately traces various ideas in the margins of his almanac prints; of these sketches he pulls a small number of proofs which he sells at double the regular price. The desire to have everything is thereby stimulated to further complete his work." The remarques were thus no merely casual form of doodling, but a shrewd business ploy at a time when Chodowiecki was determined to maintain the price level of his prints.
The history of the remarques in the case of 'Lippert and Zingg' is particularly complicated because the second plate is known with three different remarques, each erased in turn to give way to the next invention. That of the first state is universally agreed to be by Chodowiecki himself but Engelmann attributes the remarques added to the second state to Zingg, describing the two riders as Chodowiecki and his son-in-law, Papin, on their journey to Dresden in 1789; these also exist as separate impressions printed by masking out the rest of the plate. However, Hirsch attributes the remarque on IIb to Zingg's main pupil, Carl August Richter (1770-1848), on the evidence of Richter's son, Ludwig Richter (see 1981,1003.2-7).
The 1920 edition of Chodowiecki's diary for the 1773 journey identifies the two figures as Chodowiecki himself and Zingg en route to Meissen, as described in the former's entry for 7 November 1773. This identification does seem more plausible since Chodowiecki rode to Meissen in 1789 with all three of his companions on that occasion, not just his son-in-law. In a letter to Graff of 27 May 1799, in which he updates the list of recent work that he had given the previous October, Chodowiecki refers to "new small figures" having been added to the second state of this print (Steinbrucker 1921, p. 186) without any reference to Zingg being responsible for their execution.
Engelmann describes the remarque on the final state as the combined work of Chodowiecki's son, Wilhelm, who drew the convivial dining party, and of Zingg who supposedly executed the view of Dresden on the left; this too was later rejected by Hirsch and attributed to C. A. Richter on the same basis as the remarque on the second state.
Although other artists have made use of remarques, particularly in the nineteenth century, no-one either before or after Chodowiecki exploited the device in such an extended way. (For a general account of the use of remarques, including Chodowiecki's own, see Almut-Dorothee Jacobs' thesis, 'Der Randeinfall', Cologne 1974.)
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1994/5 Sept-Jan, BM, 'German Printmaking in the Age of Goethe', no. 27i
- Acquisition date
- 1863
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1863,0613.2255