print
- Museum number
- 1983,0521.23
- Title
- Object: Caroline Claudine Brentano
- Description
-
Profile view of Caroline Brentano sitting on a wall, dressed in white, reading a book; flowers in the background. 1817
Etching
- Production date
- 1817
- Dimensions
-
Height: 95 millimetres
-
Width: 82 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Text from Antony Griffiths and Frances Carey, 'German Printmaking in the Age of Goethe', BM 1994, no. 136 (with incorrect reg. no.):
The sitter was the thirteen-year-old daughter of Georg Brentano, the eldest of five brothers and sisters, all of whom Grimm drew. The link with the Brentano family came through his brothers in Cassel in 1807. Clemens was a poet, whose collection of folk-songs 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn', published in 1805-8 was an important precursor of the work of Grimm's brothers. His joint author was Achim von Arnim, who was in 1811 to marry his sister Bettina, the famous writer. Another sister, Gunda, married the equally well-known jurist and legal historian Karl Friedrich von Savigny. A third married the Frankfurt senator Friedrich von Guaita. An historic portrait of Bettina, drawn for her by Ludwig Emil Grimm between 1807-9, which she gave to Goethe (with whom she was conducting a correspondence) in 1809, was presented to the Department in 1885 by Mrs Anna Jameson (the author of 'Sacred and Legendary Art') who had been given it by Ottilie von Goethe, the artist's daughter-in-law (Koszinowski-Leuschner P30; see John Rowlands, 'Connoisseur', 187 1974, pp.264-7).
Georg Brentano, who ran the family business, had invited Ludwig Emil to accompany him on a short three-month trip to Italy in 1816. In September and October the following year Ludwig Emil stayed with his family for five weeks at their house in Rödelheim near Frankfurt, where he drew his elder daughter on 25 September (the drawing is Koszinowski-Leuschner P147). The etching was made later that year, or the next year, in Cassel, and published with the number 13 in the second portfolio of his etchings. This was issued in various versions between 1818 and 1823, and contained plates from his Italian journey as well as more portraits. His brother Wilhelm sent a set to Goethe in 1823, who compared them to the work of Hollar in a review which preferred the portraits to the landscapes ('Über Kunst und Alterthum' IV part 3, 1824, pp.54-6). Grimm later took out the number 13 rather crudely, and the traces can still be seen at the top right.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1994/5 Sept-Jan, BM, 'German Printmaking in the Age of Goethe', no.136
- Acquisition date
- 1983
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1983,0521.23