The Bread Cutter
We see here a young nobleman who is in the service of a knight. Gazing into the distance, the squire is cutting a slice from his large loaf of bread. His sword is beside him; his clothes—especially the slashed doublet and his shoes—point to the sixteenth century. They are as “old German” as the landscape with the gently flowing river, the village, and the Gothic church in the distance. Schwind was a key exponent of the nineteenth-century vogue for the romance of knights and castles. Known primarily for his fairy-tale images, he often romanticized the “good old days.” The past thus became an idyllic retreat from the present and its rationalism, which the painter experienced as increasingly cold ...
1823
Oil on canvas
49.0 x 64.0cm
3195
Image © Belvedere, Vienna, 2024
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The Bread Cutter by Moritz von Schwind
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