2te Menschen Varietaet

About this artwork

collector's mark: Lugt 2228

Art Historical Context

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, a prolific Polish-German engraver and illustrator active in Enlightenment-era Berlin, created *2te Menschen Varieta* in 1782. This intimate etching, measuring just 60mm high by 75mm wide, exemplifies Chodowiecki's mastery of miniature-scale printmaking. As director of the Prussian Academy of Arts, he renowned for capturing the nuances of 18th-century society—everyday manners, fashions, and human types—in a style blending Rococo elegance with emerging Neoclassicism. The title, translating roughly to "Second Variety of People," suggests it belongs to a series observi...

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...