The Life Class at the Vienna Academy. Mezzotint after Martin Ferdinand Quadal. 1790

Johann Jacobe

1733 – Vienna – 1797

Sheet size: 65.1 x 81.6 cm. Exh. Cat. German Printmaking in the Age of Goethe, cat. no. 43.
Signed and annotated by the artist in the lower margin.

Brilliant proof impression before the lettering in the lower margin, with narrow margins all around. A tear in the upper right corner and a barely visible fold in the centre. Slightly foxed, otherwise well preserved for a print of this size. Exceptionally beautiful and in this form extremely rare.

The print is based on Quadal’s painting of 1787 which is still extant in the Vienna Academy of Arts (Inv. N° 100). ‘Twenty artists working in different genres, wearing their best frock-coats and wigs are grouped around the model. The portly Director of the engraving school, Jakob Schmutzer, who turns to the viewer and holds a portfolio - and who perhaps commissioned this image - indicates Quadal. The latter, likewise turned to the viewer, is identified as a draughtsman by his drawing-board and sketch. Beside him is the Vice-Director and painter Heinrich Friedrich Füger von Heilbronn with his attributes of brushes and palette. On Schmutzer’s left we see the Professor of Sculpture, Franz Anton Zauner, with a clay model, which is being inspected by the Professor of Architecture Fedinand Hohenberg von Hetzdorf, who holds a plan in his hands. The man sitting behind them at a flat work top is probably a member of the engraving school. Unfortunately, it has not been possible so far to identify the other members of this life class. The stocky gentleman shielding his eyes against the glare (an allusion?) ... possibly represents Franz Anton Maulbertsch. (Hosch, p. 220, II. 4, with ill. of the painting).

The print was very popular and was copied once more in the nineteenth century by Wilhelm Hunger (1877). It is considered the most elaborate eighteenth-century mezzotint of the German-speaking world.

Bought by a museum, Northern America.