Daniel Chodowiecki

Adolph von Menzel

in 1859

Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki (16 October 1726 – 7 February 1801) was a

.

Family

He was born in the city of

scene, due to his ancestry.

According to Chodowiecki himself, his Polish nobleman paternal ancestor Bartłomiej Chodowiecki lived in the 16th century in Greater Poland, though thus is not confirmed by independent records. Gottfried Chodowiecki, Daniel's father, was a tradesman in Danzig and his mother, Henriette Ayrer, of Swiss ancestry, was a Huguenot. Daniel's grandfather Christian was also a Danzig tradesman, who had moved his business there from Toruń. When his father died, both Daniel (aged 16) and his younger brother Gottfried Chodowiecki went to live with their uncle in Berlin, who offered to educate them. In Germany Daniel received artistic training from the painter Haid in Augsburg. His brother also became a painter.

He and his wife Jeanne Barez (1726–1785) had three daughters, Jeannette (b. 1761, married the French reformed preacher Jacques Papin), Suzanne (1763–1819) and Henriette (1770–1880). Jeannette's daughter Marianne Gretschel née Chodowiecka Papin (1794–1870) and her son Heinrich Papin (1786–1839) also became artists.^[2]

Art

National Museum in Warsaw

)

Partition of Poland

Soon Daniel was able to earn a living by painting. He was admitted to the Berlin Academy in 1764 and became vice-director under

and others. He also painted many portraits of Polish nobility and was interested in Huguenot and Polish history as well, making some paintings on the subjects. He was in tune with the developing spirit of the age, and many works reflect the cult of sensibility, and then the revolutionary and German nationalist feelings of the end of the century.

In printmaking, he is credited with the invention of the deliberate remarque, a small sketch on a plate lying outside the main image. These were originally little sketches or doodles by artists, not really meant to be seen, but Chodowiecki turned them into "bonus items" for collectors.

Chodowiecki, though speaking only French and German^[3] (due to his offices in the Huguenot French community in Berlin he often spoke French), many times also declared his Polish allegiance and had his son Isaac Heinrich, born in Berlin, painted as a very young child with a Polish outfit and haircut. After the Partitions of Poland Chodowiecki wrote to Gräfin Solms-Laubach: "From my father's side I am Polish, a descendant of a brave nation which will soon vanish".^[4] In a letter to pl:Józef Łęski, a Polish astronomer, he wrote: "I consider it an honour to be a genuine Pole, even though I am now living in Germany".^[4] Because of his mother's and his wife's Huguenot descent he was very close to the Huguenots of Berlin. Nearly all his life and career was spent in Germany, writing in German and living in Berlin from the age of almost 17.

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