The red umbrella
Love and marriage in Carl Spitzweg
17.03.2024 - 16.06.2024 ,
Museum Georg Schäfer (Museum Georg Schäfer)
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No other subject occupied Spitzweg as much as love. Closely associated with his name are, for example, The Intercepted Love Letter or The Eternal Wedding Man. The exhibition explores the significance of a red umbrella in the context of love. This previously overlooked but extremely important detail in Spitzweg's pictorial world not only allows a new look at his life and his concept of love, but also at his image of women and gender roles in the 19th century.
In Spitzweg's time, the red umbrella was used in some regions of Germany as the requisite of the wedding bailiff, the master of ceremonies at peasant weddings. Spitzweg often gave the umbrella to his figures. From the beginning to the end of his artistic career, the red umbrella remained an integral part of his pictorial world. In addition to the frequent use of the motif, a comparison with other depicted parasols and parapluies, which Spitzweg used as fashion accessories according to their function, reveals that his fondness for the red umbrella went far beyond a general cultural and artistic interest. The umbrella is simultaneously emphasised and concealed. The exhibition also addresses this question, demonstrating once again that Spitzweg was neither the oddball eccentric nor the well-behaved Biedermeier idyll painter he was long regarded as.
Last edited on 20.03.2025
