1878 Southwestern corner room

1878
Floor plan of the first floor

West wall

North wall

East wall


Later Italian
and French artists

The southwestern corner room brought the visitor back to the Italy of the “Grand Tour”, the eighteenth-century land of great yearning.

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Johann Friedrich Städel had decorated his prestigious reception room on the ground floor with various Venetian cityscapes – here, at least, three paintings of the lagoon city could be found. They flanked the room’s most important painting, Pompeo Batoni’s “Allegory of the Arts” of 1740. Five female figures personify (antique) Poetry’s dialogue with Sculpture and Painting, depicted in the foreground, as well as with Music and Geometry, representing harmony and proportion. The study of Antiquity was also the guiding principle of painters such as François Gérard and Natale Schiavoni, active during the first half of the nineteenth century. The inclusion of their work in this room represented the continuity of Italian and French painting.