Norbert Grund (1717-1767) is considered the most outstanding representative of Rococo painting in Bohemia and, for the first time since the exhibition devoted to him in 1967, shown in Vienna and Prague, a large number of his paintings have been assembled in the Kinsky Palace in Prague. This has enabled knowledge of his work to be greatly expanded and it is to be incorporated in a monograph which will be published later this year.
The centre-piece of the exhibition is Self-Portrait (before 1760, National Gallery, Prague), which depicts Grund wearing a blue coat edged in yellow/gold over a loosely painted white chemise. He presents himself as a serious, assured young man, his face half in shadow and holding a palette and paint-brush. Grund had trained under his father, Christian Grund, who was in service to the Liebsteinsky of Kolowrat family as court painter and keeper of the family’s art collection. He completed his apprenticeship in 1737, and in the early 1740s worked in Vienna in close association with a group of cabinet painters including Franz de Paula Ferg whose paintings, amongst others, provided models for Grund. Returning to Prague in 1751 he was admitted to the Painters’ Guild of the Lesser Town the following year, and he remained in Prague for the rest of his life. He specialized in small-format oil paintings executed in a refined and delicate manner, which became extremely popular. These were not painted on commission but sold at affordable prices on the Prague art market and bought by the cultured middle classes. His pictures represent a variety of genre scenes and subjects with a very wide appeal, many of them repeating the same themes, only in a different mode. The quality of the individual paintings on display is variable, and his studio assistance is undocumented, with the consequence that they are very difficult to group coherently and almost impossible to date. In the exhibition they are displayed thematically, grouped together under different headings and hung against different coloured backgrounds which convey a wonderful flavour of the spirit of the Rococo in the middle of the 18th century.
Grund’s inspiration was from many different sources which he was able to transpose into his own world of fantasy and delight. The exhibition draws attention to these generic sources, in particular to Dutch and Flemish 17th-century genre paintings, examples of which are hung here. In the section entitled Noble Merriment a colourful painting of A Merry Company (National Gallery, Prague) by the Amsterdam painter Pieter Quast represents a kneeling figure toasting a happy fellow sprawling on a table covered with a red cloth accompanied by two richly dressed ladies meticulously painted, one in a bright yellow dress, the other in blue. Grund appears to have known this painting and takes the composition as the basis of his own picture Gallant Toast with two young Men and a Woman (National Gallery, Prague). He simplifies the composition: the kneeling figure raises a glass to a disinterested figure who rests on a table covered with a green cloth, and his barely indicated arm reaches the back of a female figure standing beside him. Painted with a light touch, the colours are muted and dissolve, while collars and cuffs are highlighted with touches of white which add a sparkle to the scene. The inspiration of Dutch 17th-century paintings is again evident in a number of winter skating scenes grouped under The Seasons of the Year, such as Winter Amusements in a Bay (Moravian Gallery, Brno), and a pair of Dutch Winter Landscapes with Ice Skaters (National Museum, Prague), which are exhibited alongside the Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters, by the 17th-century Haarlem painter Claes Molenaer (National Gallery, Prague), and Winter by Christian Hilfgott Brand (National Gallery, Prague). Brand was active in Vienna in the middle of the 18th century working in a comparable manner to Grund.
French influences and especially the fêtes galantes initiated by Watteau and disseminated by the series of prints entitled Receuil Jullienne, find echoes in two of Grund’s most delicate and charming paintings, Lady on a Swing and A Minuet Dancer (National Gallery, Prague). Both are set in a misty park and conceived as scenes in a ballet. The lady on the swing, inviting recollections of Fragonard, is framed by two feathery trees, her bright red skirt billowing out as a young man on the left elegantly bends forward with her discarded shoe, balanced by a floating female figure in a pink voluminous dress and dark jacket holding a rope that guides the swing. The Minuet Dancer also evokes a make-believe world as she practises her dance accompanied by a musician while she points with her fan towards two small children learning to dance. Behind, seated in front of a fountain, a mysterious figure in a white cap and blue jacket echoing Watteau watches the scene. Another amusing painting featuring a swing set in a softly painted landscape includes a rather lumpy Pierrot, unsure of himself, but admired by two well-dressed aristocratic ladies seated on the ground with their disinterested dog.
Grund painted pictures ranging across every aspect of life including aristocratic hunts, military scenes, village life, and those on the margins of society such as gypsies and beggars or the poignant Landscape with a Blind Cripple Led by a Boy (National Gallery, Prague). Displayed in the section Under the Sign of the Muses is the View of the Picture Gallery (Kunstsammlungen und Museen, Augsburg), which is unexpected in Grund’s oeuvre. In it he depicts a grand gallery tightly hung with a variety of paintings of different sizes in black frames in the tradition of the Flemish gallery paintings by David Teniers II. In the foreground two art lovers examine a book at a table draped with a luxurious red cloth and covered with objects and prints. Specific paintings from contemporary Bohemian aristocratic collections are identifiable in this exquisite evocation of an 18th-century picture hang.
Alongside are displayed two paintings: The Painter’s Studio (Self-Portrait with Wife and Child) and A Sculptor’s Studio (An Injured Sculptor) (both National Gallery, Prague). The interpretation of the subject matter in both is decidedly idiosyncratic. The first is a homely scene showing the artist playing a musical instrument to the delight of his wife and child in very humble surroundings painted in muted colours, with a number of pictures on the wall behind, including a crucifixion. The second picture is also a domestic scene where a distressed sculptor in a red jerkin is removing his legging to reveal his swollen leg, resting his foot on his wife’s knee, while a small girl anxiously looks on. The seated woman with her expressive gesture and basket beside her has distant echoes of Chardin, while in the sparsely furnished studio a sculpture of a male nude stands on a rough section of a tree trunk, below which are the sculptor’s tools with a few plaster models behind executed in soft tones of brown.
In contrast is a second pair, the first representing A Painter’s Workshop (A Visit to a Studio) (National Gallery, Prague). In this Grund portrays a well-dressed noble couple in an artist’s studio, accompanied by their turbaned black servant, discussing a canvas held up by the artist’s young assistant which shows Job meditating over the symbols of the arts. The artist, brushes and palette in hand, points to an assemblage of objects on the floor including a globe, a bust, and volume of prints, crumpled drawings and a pair of dividers which allude to the scholarly pretensions of the artist. A Sculptor’s Workshop (National Gallery, Prague), shows the master, carving tools in hand, seated astride a large wooden figure on the ground, while overseeing the operation of his workshop. Behind him two assistants are carving a vast two-figure classical garden sculpture, while a drawing for a commission hangs from a shelf. These fascinating and unusual paintings have been identified as Allegories of Painting and of Sculpture, referring to the competition between the primacy of painting or sculpture known as ‘the paragone’, and they point to a more serious side of Grund.
The popularity of Grund’s work is attested to by the very large number of prints after his paintings produced and sold following the painter’s death in 1767, by Johann Georg Balzer (1734-1799). A selection of them is included in the exhibition. Balzer started by selling them as independent sheets which he later grouped together, reissued and modified, as well as deciding on their titles. Some of the plates bear fulsome dedications to either burghers or nobles and are inscribed with the names of the then owners of Grund’s original paintings. This has helped to provide a record of Grund’s missing paintings. The examples on view such as On the Edge of a Battlefield (National Gallery, Prague), illustrate the precision and fidelity exercised by the engraver. Plates were published not only in Prague but also in Paris, Augsburg, Vienna, and Leipzig, which spread knowledge of his work more widely.
Grund’s small paintings, with their distinctive character, were completely in tune with the provincial fashions of his time and this is reinforced by a display of Rococo decorative arts and furniture together with a number of contemporary costumes which set the scene and create the atmosphere of the period. This exhibition successfully lives up to its name Norbert Grund: The Charm of the Everyday in bringing together so many small paintings which demonstrate the beauty, lively elegance and wit associated with the world of 18th-century Prague and are painted with a light and brilliant touch which perhaps inspires comparisons with Francesco Guardi.
The well-illustrated and informative bilingual catalogue, by Marcela Vondráková, published by the National Gallery, Prague, is an invaluable resource for those unable to visit the exhibition.
Catalogue, Národní galerie v Praze, 2017, ISBN 978-80-7035-656-2
The exhibition was held in The National Gallery, Prague from 1st December 2017 to 18th March 2018.