"Our passions are the principal instruments of our preservation. It is, therefore, an enterprise as vain as it is ridiculous to want to destroy them."
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1748)

Wednesday, 20 December 2017

Watery frolics in the style of Peter Fendi




Here is a group of paintings which were thought, for many years, to be by Austrian artist Peter Fendi (1796-1842).   Fendi was a pioneer in colour printing and also designed a number of banknotes for the Austrian government in 1841.  




These pictures (part of a set of forty) were not published until 1910, however, which makes their provenance as being by Fendi doubtful.  Fendi didn't produce so much as a nude so it would be surprising if these were indeed by him.  Nevertheless, some still maintain that they are his work.




Whoever did them, they have a sprightly joy about them, as groups of ladies and a couple of very excited (but faceless) gentlemen disport themselves in the water in a very tidy landscape.  






The other prints from this set are all depicted as being indoors and feature equally athletic and and joyfully unrealistic figures.  We will look at them another time.

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