Adelgunde toont berouw bij het altaar

About this artwork

Prent gebruikt voor: Wächter, Leonhard. Sagen der Vorzeit von Veit Weber. 5 dln. Berlijn: Friedrich Maurer, 1795, dl. 5.

Art Historical Context

This delicate etching by Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki captures a poignant moment of repentance, showing the character Adelgunde kneeling in remorse before an altar. Created in 1795 as an illustration for the fifth volume of Leonhard Wächter’s *Sagen der Vorzeit* (published under the pseudonym Veit Weber), the print brings to life scenes from medieval legends and sagas popular in late eighteenth-century Germany. Chodowiecki, a leading book illustrator of the Enlightenment era, specialized in small-scale narrative etchings that made literary stories vivid for readers. Measuring just 133 by 80 mi...

About the Artist

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki · 1726–1801

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki (1726–1801) was a German painter and printmaker of Polish-Huguenot descent who became the most celebrated graphic artist in 18th-century Germany. Born in Danzig (now Gdańsk), he created approximately 2,000 etchings that serve as an invaluable visual record of German bourgeois life during the Enlightenment. Largely self-taught, Chodowiecki moved to Berlin in 1743 and ach...