The Economist
Niklaus Michael Spengler, 1757.
Glass panel painted on reverse in eglomisé technique with gold and silver leaf and opaque and transparent pigments. Signed "Nico. Micha. Spengler. pinx,1757." on the right. In a later gilt softwood frame, H 35.5, W 28 cm.
This reverse glass painting reproduces the engraving "l'Oeconome" by Jacques Philippe Le Bas (1707 - 1783) after the painting by Jean Siméon Chardin (1699 - 1790) exactly. The only deviation from the model is the Comtoise clock on the wall, which shows the time as after closing, when the merchant's wife checks the stock and calculates the earnings.
After the publication of the painting, the motif became so popular that Johann Joachim Kaendler even moulded a figure of a woman in the same pose with her chair and the basket and bottles for the Meissen porcelain manufactory in 1759. Johann Friedrich Lück also modelled an identical figure for the Frankenthal manufactory in 1762.
Nikolaus Michael Spengler (Konstanz 1700 - 1776 Darmstadt) came from a family of painters who emigrated from St. Gallen in 1582 and were documented as living in Konstanz for five generations. Spengler was employed by the Count of Hesse-Darmstadt from 1728 at the latest. He usually signed his works, as he did in the present piece.
Provenance
Art market, Paris.
Literature
Illus. in Geyssant, Peintures sous verre. Eglomisés fixés et estampes sous verre de l'antiquité à nos jours, Paris 2008, p. 118.
Illus. in Steiner, ... eine andere Art von Malerey. Hinterglasgemälde und ihre Vorlagen 1550 - 1850, Berlin-Munich 2012, illus. 64.
Illus. in Steiner, Goldglanz und Silberpracht – Hinterglasmalerei aus vier Jahrhunderten, Berlin-Munich 2015, no. 46.
For the Meissen porcelain figure see Brattig (ed.), Meissen Barockes Porzellan, Stuttgart-Cologne 2010, cat. no. 53.
For the Frankenthal porcelain figure see Beaucamp-Markowsky, Frankenthaler Porzellan, vol. 1: Die Plastik, Munich 2008, cat. no. 172.
Exhibitions
2005 - 2006 "Eleganz in Glanz", Barockmuseum Salzburg.
2012 Schaezlerpalais der Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg.
2015 Schaezlerpalais der Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg.