A. Pünicke, Self-Portrait, 1825, Lithograph

A. Pünicke (1810 - 1847 ibid.) after Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764 Berlin - 1850 ibid.): Self-portrait, 1825, LithographyTechnique: Lithography on PaperInscription: Lower middle signed in the printing plate: "Steindruck von E. Pnicke in Leipzig". At the lower part inscribed in the printing plate: "Johann Georg von Schadow". Date: 1825Description: In 1825, the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow published Wittenbergs Denkmler der Bildnerei, Baukunst und Malerei (Wittenberg's monuments to sculpture, architecture and painting), to which a lithographed self-portrait was attached. This shows him as a man of about sixty en face, his upper body with frock coat, loose collar and neckerchief turned slightly to the side. Four years earlier, Schadow's Luther Monument had been erected in Wittenberg, one of the early civic monuments of the 19th century. In the aforementioned usage, the Schadow portrait is thus to be understood less as that of an erudite editor than as the portrait of an independent artist who claims part of the monument's glory for himself. The little cap on the lithograph identifies him as a sculptor, a detail that distinguishes the present print from an otherwise very similarly drawn self-portrait. The penetrating gaze characterises a self-confident artist whose intention here was obviously fidelity to reality rather than idealisation. Since the lithograph stone had been accidentally ground out after printing part of the edition, a modified version of the portrait had to be drawn on the stone for the rest of the edition, this time in reverse, in an oval with a hatched background. The present sheet is this variant.Person: Gottfried Schadow (1764 - 1850 ) Size: 26,9 cm x 20,6 cm (10,6 x 8,1 in), Depiction: 14,9 cm x 15,7 cm (5,9 x 6,2 in)Condition: Good condition. Age-appropriate.