Sigmund Freudenberger (1745-1801) - The Guitar Lesson & The Harpsichord Lesson - Rare Prints

Sigmund FREUDENBERGER (1745-1801)
Swiss school
The guitar lesson & The harpsichord lesson
Watercolor etchings
Second half of the 18th century (around 1770)
in Louis XVI style frames from the beginning of the 20th [Mona, rue François-Ier à Paris]
rare
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22.9 x 18.3 cm [subject]
34.5 x 30 cm [frame]
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Sigmund Freudenberger was born in Bern on June 16, 1745. After an apprenticeship with the painter Jakob Emanuel Handmann (1761-1764), he went to Paris where he attended the workshops of François Boucher, Johann Georg Wille, Joseph Aved and Alexandre Roslin. Initially a portrait painter, he then devoted himself to aristocratic genre scenes, very influenced by Greuze. Many engravers used his drawings as models for prints.
Returning to Bern in 1773, he opened a private art academy there. His genre scenes, now rural, quickly met with great success. He died in Bern on November 15, 1801. Freudenberger is considered one of the most important [Swiss] little masters of the Golden Age (Tapan Bhattacharya, Historical Dictionary of Switzerland).
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The Guitar Lesson & The Harpsichord Lesson, which date from the artist's Parisian period, are among the rarest prints of his work. A pair is kept in the Prints Cabinet of the Swiss National Library (R. & A. Gugelmann collection).