Johann Hermann Kretzschmer circle

Circle of JOHANN HERMANN KRETZSCHMER (Germany, 1811-1890).
"Mother and child."
Oil on canvas.
Presents restorations.
Measurements: 32 x 26,5 cm; 45 x 39,5 cm (frame).

Scene of interior in which a mother touched with a cotton cap distracts his small one constructing pyramids with the cards. The intimate scene closely follows models of Hermann Kretzschmer, an author of the Düsseldorf school who developed two lines of work: one orientalist and the other focused on family scenes like the one we show. The painter focuses on both characters, extracting the qualities of the garments and the tenderness of their shining countenances. Although he also describes the interior of the middle-class room in Germany in the second half of the nineteenth century, as the sewing spindle we see in the background.

Johann Hermann Kretzschmer was a painter and engraver of the Düsseldorf School of Painting. From 1831 to 1837 he studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy with Wilhelm von Schadow. The first larger works were paintings of fairy tales based on Theodor Hildebrandt and Eduard Steinbrück. At the suggestion of his friend Ferdinand Freiligrath, he undertook an extensive study tour of the Mediterranean and Near East: In 1838 he went to Rome for the first time and visited Sicily, Greece, Egypt and Constantinople in 1840 and 1841. He partly financed his travels with portraits of dignitaries. He attracted attention with the portrait of the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I, as until then this ruler had not been painted due to the prohibition of images in Islam. In 1842 he returned to Düsseldorf, but in 1845 he moved to Berlin. From the sketches, collectibles and experiences he brought back with him from the Orient, he created more paintings of the "ethnic genre" in the 1840s and 1850s, and was sometimes called the "first Berlin painter of the Orient". However, he soon turned to other subjects of genre painting. In 1856 he was appointed full professor. Kretzschmer was a childhood friend of the composer Otto Nicolai. He was a friend of the poet Emanuel Geibel, who dedicated a sonnet to him.