Portrait of Johann Kupezky and his son

Mezzotint, 1737, Lettered below image, below ' IOANNES KUPEZKY, PICTOR, et eiusdem B. FILIUS/ Movet ed Coelestia quondam Corda Dolor Stat/ Cum Privilegio Sac. Caeas. Maj.', and production details: 'Idem Io. Kupezkij pinx./ P. 4. *** / Cum Privilegio Sac. Coes. Maj. / hos Iconismos ARTJFJCJ juxta Originale sculptos/ decenti veneratione D.D.D. Bernardus Vogel. Norib. 1737.

Very good example, whit thin margins.

Portrait of the painter Johann Kupezky (1667 – 1740); three-quarter length, seated to left on a stool, with head turned to look towards the viewer, holding staff with rope in his left hand, wearing large round spectacles and gown with broad pleated unfastened belt; his son, Christoph Johann Friedrich, sitting at a spinet with his upper body in profile to right and head turned three-quarters to right, glancing towards the viewer, pointing with index finger of his right hand at a music manuscript sheet, entitled 'Aria', held in his left hand; curtain behind.

"This famous portrait, also known as the Portrait with Spec­tacles, has its origins in a self-portrait by the Bohemian painter, Johann Kupezky (1667–1740), who was active from 1723 in Nuremberg, where he was held in great esteem. The painted version is now in the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart (Inv. No. 379). Kupezky, who is wearing a velvet beret and a comfortable dressing gown tied with a sash around his waist, has adopted a self-confident pose. The artist was undoubtedly inspired by Rembrandt’s self-portraits. While his powerful, stocky figure dominates the scene, it is above all the rigorous and unsparing psychological characterisation of his person which lends a unique touch to this work of art. The furrowed brow, the melan­choly gaze behind the horn-rimmed spectacles and the turned-down corners of his mouth all point to introspection and painful reflection. The reason for this was undoubtedly the passing of his son, Christian Johann Friedrich Kupezky, who died of smallpox in 1733 at the age of just seventeen.

In this second state the figure of his son has been added to the composition. With his right hand the boy points meaningfully at the score of a composition for spinet, the scene symbolising the cultivated atmosphere and domestic harmony which must once have reigned in the Kupezky household. The author of this mezzotint, the engraver Bernhard Vogel, ranked among the foremost German reproductive engravers of his time. Active alternately in Augsburg and Nuremberg, he was known above all for an anthology with mezzotints after inventions by Kupezky, in which Valentin Daniel Preissler was also involved. These reproductive engravings were of considerable importance for the dissemination and reputation of Kupezky’s paint­ings and made his name known beyond southern Germany" (cfr. N. Teeuwisse, Selected Works XVI, pp. 62-63, n. 25).