The Dam, Joseph Hornung, 1850
Joseph Hornung

The Dam

1850 · Oil painting · 46.4 × 38 cm

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Victoria and Albert Museum

London, United Kingdom

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

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About the painting

Joseph Hornung (1792-1870) was born in Geneva. He took drawing lessons with Constant Vaucher but was essentially self-taught in the French Romantic tradition. He was considered the leader of the Geneva school and the most representative painter of the Reformation. He exhibited at the Salon in the Musée Rath, Geneva, as early as 1826 and subsequently at the Royal Academy, London (1839) and the Paris Salon (1831, 1840, 1841, 1843 and 1847). He was praised by the critics and Louis-Philippe and Ary Scheffer were among his admirers.

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This painting is a good example of Hornung's genre scenes. It shows a group of children playing on a mountain stream with a wheel while another is removing a wooden dam. This pleasant scene is reminiscent of the Biedermeier imagery, ideologically opposed to academic and religious painting and which favoured such subject matter as portraits, landscapes and genre scenes.

Victoria and Albert Museum

Particulars

Accession number
1614-1869

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