The Städel Museum’s jubilee year starts with an exhibition of outstanding drawings and etchings by the French artist Jean-Jacques de Boissieu (1736–1810), which will be on display in the Exhibition Hall of the Department of Prints and Drawings. Though created in a period of historically revolutionary events around the French Revolution, Boissieu’s oeuvre mirrors the landscape and life of the province around his native city of Lyon with an almost irritatingly unexcited and serious steadiness. Boissieu was already highly acclaimed beyond France in his lifetime. Not only princes but also private collectors like Johann Friedrich Städel (1728‒1816) were fascinated with the landscapes, genre scenes, and portraits depicted in the artist’s drawings and prints. The founder of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut acquired over twenty drawings and far more than two hundred etchings by Boissieu. These works are not only part of the Städel Museum’s oldest holdings but constitute one of the most comprehensive collections of Boissieu’s works in Germany. The thirteen drawings and eighty-three etchings which have been showed in the Städel’s special presentation offered an impressive insight into the artist’s production.
Curator: Dr. Jutta Schütt (Head of Prints and Drawings from 1750, Städel Museum)