What is a Lithophane?
Lithophanes are three-dimensional translucent porcelain plaques which when backlit reveal detailed photographic-like images. First created in Europe in the 1820s, the largest collection of this 19th century art form in the world is now on view at the Blair Museum of Lithophanes.
In the 19th century, a hotel was built at Tête-Noire, France to cater for people travelling between Martigny and Chamonix. In 1883 the hotel owner (Valentin Gay-Crosier) invited guests to visit the gorge and its secret waterfalls, which was right next to the hotel.
The image of the boy and girl on the swing is from the painting Springtime by Pierre-Auguste Cot. This flirtatious duo in classicizing dress, painted with notable technical finesse, reflects Cot’s allegiance to the academic style of his teachers, including Bouguereau and Cabanel. Exhibited at the Salon of 1873, the picture was Cot’s greatest success, widely admired and copied in engravings, fans, porcelains, and tapestries. Its first owner, hardware tycoon John Wolfe, awarded the work a prime spot in his Manhattan mansion, where visitors delighted in "this reveling pair of children, drunken with first love ... this Arcadian idyll, peppered with French spice." Wolfe’s cousin, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, later commissioned a similar scene from Cot, The Storm, now also in The Met’s collection.
The image of the pair running under the fabric is titled The Storm by Cot as well. The painting is reminiscent of an earlier work, Springtime, which was completed by Cot in 1870. It was subsequently acquired by John Wolfe after it was displayed with astounding success at the Salon of 1873. It is believed that the presence of Spring in Wolfe's collection was the impetus that drove his cousin, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, to purchase it in 1880. Both are of roughly the same dimensions and are evidently related in a subject in the sense that both portray a young, nubile couple. It is from this therefore, that both are thought to form a symbiotic pair, where the success of the earlier work led to the creation of the latter. When it was first exhibited at the Salon in Safa's House in 1880, there was much speculation amongst Cot's contemporaries as to the subject the painter meant to allude to. Some drew reference to the novel Paul et Virginie, first published by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre in 1788, and others to the fourth century romance Daphnis and Chloe by the Hellenistic writer Longus. Evidence for the first interpretation comes from the specific motif of the couple running from the rain and covered by a billowing drapery corresponding to a famous and often illustrated scene in Paul et Virginie:
One day, while descending from the mountaintop, I saw Virginie running from one end of the garden toward the house, her head covered by her overskirt, which she had lifted from behind her in order to gain shelter from a rain shower. From a distance I had thought she was alone, but upon coming closer to help her walk I saw that by the arm she held Paul who was almost entirely covered by the same blanket. Both were laughing together in the shelter of this umbrella of their own invention.
Austrian painter Hans Zatzka -also known as P. Ronsard, Zabateri, Pierre de Ronsard, Joseph Bernard and Bernárd Zatzka- was born in Vienna, to a builder and his viennese actress wife, Hilde Sochor.
Zatzka showed an early interest in painting. From 1877-1882 he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, studying under Christian Griepenkerl, Karl Wurzinger and Carl of Blaas.
After several trips to Italy, Hans worked in the style of his predecessor, Hans Makart, as a free-lance painter in Vienna, painting ceiling frescoes in stairway houses and residential buildings, numerous murals for altars in churches, and portraits. It was during this time that he developed as special interest in academic genre paintings of idyllic women and cupids.
From these representations, Zatzka turned to painting guardian angel images, elves, sensuous female figures, genre scenes, allegories and other popular motifs.
By the 1920's this style was the size of choice for most European homes. By the turn of the century, Zatzkas' pictures turned to picture postcard sales in the galleries of Viennese artists, and ultimately sold to other publishers.
In 1906, Zatzka gave precise orders for mass production on a trial basis. By 1914, the first of Hans Zatzkas' bedroom images were distributed. Hans Zatzka did not make his living from postcards but from his religious frescoes in churches, altar paintings, and other large commissions such as hospitals in Vienna during the 1920's.
He lived in his home studio, never took in students or teaching jobs and painted until the 80th year of his life.
Hans Zatzka died December 17, 1945.
Tole decorated tin frame with tin drawer and single candle holder. Lithophane has has faint stamp (B) on the front and back. Scene is Interpretation of a painting Die Kirchgangerin (The Churchgoer or Worshipper) by Louis Ammy Blanc 1835.
