First Steps
The theme of a child’s first steps was a popular subject of genre paintings in the uncertain years following the French Revolution, owing largely to its reassuring message of continuity. Catel, who studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, would also have been familiar with the related allegory of the Ages of Man, the subject of a major Salon painting by François Gérard (1808; Musée Condé, Chantilly). The present work shares the Italian setting of Gérard’s but updates its antique dress by depicting a contemporary peasant family.
Artwork Details
- Title: First Steps
- Artist: Franz Ludwig Catel (German, Berlin 1778–1856 Rome)
- Date: ca. 1820–25
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 18 3/4 x 14 3/4 in. (47.6 x 37.4 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: The Whitney Collection, Gift of Wheelock Whitney III, and Purchase, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. McVeigh, by exchange, 2003
- Object Number: 2003.42.9
- Curatorial Department: European Paintings
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