Lovers (painting)
Liebespaar , also Gotha lovers , is the name of a double portrait created by the caretaker in the second half of the 15th century (probably around 1480). The work was initially attributed to various painters, such as Hans Schüchlin , Hans Holbein the Elder , Matthias Grünewald or Albrecht Dürer . It is the first large-format double portrait in German panel painting that depicts a secular (non- liturgical ) scene.
Image description
The picture has a format of 104 cm × 80 cm and its color is kept in a cool, almost bitter tone. It is designed very rich in contrast and detail. In these details it exudes a natural freshness and grace that breaks through the strict stylization of the cool basic tone.
The picture shows two lovingly inclined people under two banners and the Count's Hanau coat of arms. The man wears a wreath of wild roses on his head as a token of love. The female person holds an artfully formed “string” (see text in the banner) and a small rose as symbols of love in her hands. The “string” was a mark that was attached to clothing and goes back to the Old Testament . In the corresponding Bible passage (Moses 4:15, 38) it says:
"And the LORD said to Moses, Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them that they may lap the wings of their clothes for them under all your descendants, and put yellow cords on the lappets on their wings."
At the time the picture was created around 1480, the Hanau coat of arms stood for the County of Hanau-Münzenberg . The persons depicted are therefore very likely Count Philipp I von Hanau-Munzenberg (1449–1500) and Margarete Weißkirchner , with whom he lived after the death of his wife, Adriana von Nassau (1449–1477). The picture could have been taken on one of his trips to the Holy Land (1483 and 1491).
Content and interpretation of the banner
A two-part banner hovers over the couple. In addition to the initial (the decorative "S") of the right slogan opposite the unadorned "U" on the left side, the content of the dialogue also indicates that the statement of the woman in the right half of the picture is at the beginning and the man replies. The text on the banners of the painting reads:
- Woman (banner on the right side of the picture): Sye didn’t really despise Dye uch dsz Schnürlin made it
- Man (banner on the left side of the picture): Un byllich het Sye esz gedan Want I han esz sye enjoy lan.
Translated into today's German, the banner reads roughly as follows:
- Woman: She didn't quite despise you, the one who tied the thread.
- (Freely translated: She who made you the lace is very fond of you. )
- Man: And cheaply she did it, and I want to let her enjoy it.
- (Freely translated: And she did it right, and I will let her fare well. )
It is a promise of loyalty by the couple, which - as evidenced by the clothing and the handing over of the lace - is presented in a manner befitting their status. With his promise, the man pledges to take care of the woman's well-being in the future. This is interesting in that historical sources show that the couple did not appear to be married. The reason for this is that Margarete Weißkirchner was of bourgeois origin and therefore not befitting a count .
exhibition
The picture has been in Gotha since at least 1844 and is now part of the painting collection of the Schloss Friedenstein Gotha Foundation . After a restoration, it was exhibited in the Schlossmuseum at Friedenstein Castle from 1997 . Since October 2013 it has been a highlight of the collection of paintings of the Gotha dukes that can be viewed in the reopened Ducal Museum .
A completely parallel picture with a corresponding text from Mainz has only been copied in the family register of the Eisenberger family and, like the inscription itself, makes it unlikely that it is a double portrait.
literature
- Reinhard Dietrich : The state constitution in the Hanauischen = Hanauer Geschichtsblätter 34, Hanau 1996. ISBN 3-9801933-6-5
- Josef Heinzelmann: The "Gothaer Liebespaar" is a pair of lovers , in: Archive for Hessian history and antiquity 57 (1999), pp. 209-236.
- Daniel Hess: The lovers from Gotha. Fischer (Tb.), Frankfurt, 1996. ISBN 3-596-13090-5
- Gertrud Rudolff-Hille: The double portrait of a pair of lovers under the Hanau coat of arms in the Gotha Castle Museum , in: Bildende Kunst (1968), p. 19.
- Hans Martin Schmidt : The love couple of the caretaker , in: 675 years Hanau , catalog no. 89, fig. 135.
- Allmuth Schuttwolf: Seasons of Emotions. The Gotha couple and love in the late Middle Ages. Hatje Cantz Verlag, 1998. ISBN 3-7757-0733-6
- Ernst Julius Zimmermann : Hanau Stadt und Land , 3rd edition, Hanau 1919, ND 1978.
Web links
- Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet: The Gotha Lovers : Around 1480/1485 museum-digital.de (accessed on February 2, 2012)