About the Work
No other portrait has shaped our image of Goethe as much as this one: the painter Tischbein depicts the “great Goethe” as a man in between epochs, in between antiquity and his own time. Goethe set off for Italy in September 1786, incognito, for he was already a famous author. In Rome, he stayed with his painter friend Tischbein, with whom he also made an excursion to the tombs of antiquity in the Campagna, the backdrop of which the artist uses for staging the famous poet. Only on closer inspection does the depiction’s still unexplained oddity become apparent: it looks as if Goethe had two left feet.
About the Acquisition
Baroness Salomon de Rothschild, also known as Adèle Hannah Caroline von Rothschild (1843−1922), was living in Paris when she bequeathed this famous painting to the Städel in 1878. Her husband, Salomon James de Rothschild (1835−1864), was a member of the Frankfurt bankers’ family Rothschild. The painting had come into the family’s possession during travels in Italy in the 1840s. For a time, it was on display in their manor outside Frankfurt – Günthersburg, the present-day Günthersburgpark.
