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Updated: June 3, 2025
His presence was not needed in the studio during these days, for the life-sized portrait 'begins already to stand out from the canvas, and Tischbein was now painting the folds of the mantle, which were swathed around a clay figure.
Was to be, yes. On June 27th he reports that Tischbein's work 'is succeeding happily; the likeness is striking, and the conception pleases everybody. Three days later: 'Tischbein goes to Naples. Incredible! We stare aghast, as in the presence of some great dignitary from behind whom, by a ribald hand, a chair is withdrawn when he is in the act of sitting down.
So that when came the longed-for day, and the Duke gave leave of absence, and Goethe, closing his official portfolio with a snap and imprinting a fervent but hasty kiss on the hand of Frau von Stein, fared forth on his pilgrimage, Tischbein was a prospect inseparably bound up for him with that of the Seven Hills. Baedeker had not been born. Tischbein would be a great saviour of time and trouble.
Of this kind is the well-known story of a servant who was bitten in a courtyard at night by a mad dog. In the belief that she was beyond hope, she seized the dog and dragged it into a stable, which she then locked, so that no one else might be bitten. Then again there is the incident in Naples, which Tischbein has immortalised in one of his aquarelles.
Rome was what he had come for; and the fussers of the coteries must not pester him in his golden preoccupation with the antique world. Tischbein was very useful in warding off the profane throng fanning away the flies. Let us hope he was actuated solely by zeal in Goethe's interest, not by the desire to swagger as a monopolist.
Or rather, I have just been reading a translation of it, published in 1885 by George Bell & Sons. And I daresay the painting I so want to see and have isn't a very good painting. Wilhelm Tischbein is hardly a name to conjure with, though in his day, as a practitioner in the 'historical' style, and as a rapturous resident in Rome, Tischbein did great things; big things, at any rate.
Even the 'Penny Cyclopaedia' , which devotes a column to little Tischbein himself, and goes into various details of his career, is silent about the portrait of Goethe. I learn from that column that Tischbein became director of the Neapolitan Academy, at a salary of 600 ducats, and resided in Naples until the Revolution of '99, when he returned in haste to Germany.
Perhaps he had wondered that she should sacrifice herself to Sir William Hamilton.... 'I like Hamilton uncommonly' is a phrase culled from one of his letters; and when a man is very hearty about the protector of a very beautiful woman one begins to be suspicious. I do not mean to suggest that Miss Harte though it is true she had not yet met Nelson was fascinated by Tischbein.
Throughout the Sicilian tour Goethe gives the rosiest reports of the young man's cheerful ways and strict attention to the business of sketching. It may be that these reports were coloured partly by a desire to set Tischbein down. But there seems to be no doubt that Goethe liked Kniep greatly and rejoiced in the quantity and quality of his work.
At The Hague in the Mauritshuis there is another such subject; also in Antwerp and Brussels. But a jolly painter. Steen and Teniers we may sidestep. Also the artificial though graceful Tischbein. When you are in Holland look at the Dutch pictures. A De Vos painted topers and fishermen with gusto, and there is Vinckboons, who doted on scenes of violence.
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