W. GREBNER (*1784) after BREE (*1786), Duke of... Lot 130
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W. GREBNER (*1784) after BREE (*1786), Duke of Brunswick-Oels on his deathbed, around 1815, Crayon m
Willem Grebner (1784 Vreeland (Utrecht) - 1866 Amsterdam) after Philippe Jacques van Bree (1786 - 1871 ibid.): Duke Friedrich Wilhelm of Brunswick-Oels on his deathbed, c. 1815, Crayon manner
Technique:
Crayon manner on Paper
Inscription:
inscribed and signed at the bottom: "M. J. van Brée Pinxt. Wm. Grebner. Sculpt." and inscribed: "Friedrich Wilhelm, Regierender Herzog von Braunschweig-Lüneburg und Oels; bleibt auf den Höhen von Genappe am 16ten Junius 1815. an der Spitze seiner Braunschweiger, im 42ste. Year of his age."
Date:
c. 1815
Description:
The village of Genappe lies on the direct route from Quatre-Bras to the battlefield of Waterloo. A fierce rearguard action took place there between the Allies retreating towards Wellington and Napoleon's victorious troops at Quatre-Bras, in which Frederick William was mortally wounded. Since 1809, the Duke had been building up the Black Corps, which was to bring back his Brunswick heritage; it had been lost to Jérôme Napoleon's model state of Westphalia. Willem Grebner's impressive crayon etching reproduces a lost painting by the Antwerp history painter van Bree, who was commissioned by the Napoleonic Empire from 1801, but from 1814 devoted himself to the glorification of the House of Orange. The luminous white of the dead man's still open eyes is striking. Grebner's use of the crayon technique, which allows for silky nuances as well as strong chiaroscuro, lends the classicist composition a certain intimacy. The composition and motif are reminiscent of David's Death of Marat, but in the service of restorative hero worship, the iconography of the dead Christ is invoked even more strongly here through the visible side wound.
Keywords:
printmaking, death, dying, nobility, Netherlands, Waterloo, Napoleon, Wellington, printmaking, military, war, 19th century, Romanticism, People, Germany,
Size:
Paper: 47,6 cm x 44,8 cm (18,7 x 17,6 in), Plate: 38,6 cm x 37,6 cm (15,2 x 14,8 in), Depiction: 31,0 cm x 37,5 cm (12,2 x 14,8 in)
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