The good mother

Sculptors: Michel Victor Acier and Johann Carl Schönheit

Year of creation: 1774

Height: 23 cm

Limited edition: 3 per year

In front of us is a very interesting piece of the Meissen manufactory in Rococo style, which takes us back to the fine art of the 18^th century, and especially to the pictures of Johann Eleazar Zeissig, a famous German artist. Schenau was his nickname, which he invented himself after the city where he was born.

At the time, the artist studied at the Paris Academy of Fine Arts, where he met with various French portraitists such as, for example, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, from whom he borrowed the Rococo style, and which greatly influenced his work and determined the direction of French painting in German art of the 18^th century.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Johann Eleazar Schenau made great historical, mythological, allegorical paintings, and at the same time engaged in painting at the Sevres Porcelain Factory. He was presented to the French court and became a portraitist of many famous personalities, including Madame Pompadour.

Upon returning from Paris, he became the director of the Art School of Painting and Drawing at the Meissen manufactory in 1773. From 1774 he also become a professor at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. He painted many paintings of motherhood and family scenes that idealized the happiness of family life of the high society.

Duchess Maria Antonia of Bavaria

One of these paintings is a portrait of Duchess Maria Antonia of Bavaria, born in 1724, with her children, and which she personally ordered from Schenau.

Schenau. Family of the Elector of Saxony

 Another painting from 1772, shows the whole family of the Elector of Saxony.

Schenau. Family happiness.

The choice of such a composite image of the principle of a woman surrounded by children was defined by the prototype of the ideal mother of the Classical period, which was very often the main character for paintings of this time. More concretely, it was a Roman noble from the 2^nd century BC: Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, famous for her poetic gift, extraordinary mental abilities and incomparable devotion with regards to the main purpose of a mother: bringing up and educating her children.

Jules Cavelier (1814-1894) – marble, Cornelia

Mother of the Gracchi

Some of Schenau’s pictures were taken by Acier as a basis for the composition “Good Mother”, which became the collective image of motherhood and family in the 18^th century.

In this composition of Acier and Schoenheit, a woman is sitting in a chair in the style of Louis XVI, trimmed with gold. She is wearing a homemade coat and a cloak is thrown over her shoulders.  Her hair is pulled back and decorated with several feathers. All items reflect trends in fashion 60-70s of the 18^th century, and confirm that she belongs to the aristocratic upper class.

The figure is very bright, very detailed, metaphorically rich and well-developed.

You can become the owner of this precious image of family happiness in the form of this elegant lady, and also add the composition ”the Good Father” of the same Michel Victor Acier to your Meissen collection. You can order both figures from our internet-shop or in our salon in Karlovy Vary.