Carolina Friederica Friedrich (1749-1815): Bloemstilleven met kersen, olie op doek, gedateerd 1780

Work: 40 x 28,5 cm

Frame: 41 x 29,5 cm

The painting signed and dated (1780?) on the stone base, just below the table top.

Carolina was born in 1749 in the then still independent municipality of Friedrichstadt at the gates of Dresden, as one of the six children of Johanna Dorothea Günther and the wallpaper painter and etcher David Friedrich (1719-1766). She was trained by her father and her brother, the history painter Alexander Friedrich (1744-1793). Thanks to her skills, Carolina took care of the family after the death of her father. After studying in nature, she specialized in still lifes, the quality of which also spread in academic circles. The art-loving Saxon diplomat Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn feared a waste of talent in view of the starving Friedrich family. Therefore, he campaigned energetically for Caroline, so that the Electoral Saxon Art Academy in Dresden awarded her a scholarship for hopeful art talents from 1770. Sponsored by the Saxon Elector Friedrich August III, she became honorary member of the Academy in 1774 and as a still life teacher she was the only woman to teach there since 1783. In contrast to the more matter-of-fact plant depictions of her brother Jacob, Caroline’s tempera brush drawings on toned paper unfold more splendidly and more colorfully, which prompted Duke Franz Friedrich Anton von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld to buy thirty of her paintings. Her sponsor, the Princess Henriette Amalie von Anhalt-Dessau, the youngest daughter of the Old Dessau, also bought several pieces from her. These were incorporated around 1900 in the picture gallery of the Amalienstift Dessau. However, many of her works have remained lost to this day, including her painting 'Allegory of World Peace' with the embroidered motto 'Pax universalis 1800', which symbolized the year of peace in 1800 and attracted a lot of public attention – probably her only work outside the still life genre. Paintings by her hand later came to the collections of King Friedrich August II of Saxony. At the beginning of the 19th century, some of her pictures were included in the catalogs of the Dresden gallery. Today, the Kupferstichkabinett Dresden keeps a considerable number of drawings, watercolours and gouaches. (link)

Provenance:

- Private collection, Belgium.

Codition: (UV-checked)

- The painting in very good and hangable condition. 

- Attractive colours.

- Relined.

- A faint network of craquelures.

- The UV-light shows foremost the typical colour of the varnish.

- Some small retouches and touch-ups, especially to the borders and hardly in the central scene.