(Grünstadt 1719–1768 Darmstadt)
Children fishing; and Children playing,
oil on panel, each 36 x 46 cm, framed, a pair (2)

Provenance:
Collection Gottfried (1852-1938) and Henri de Rodt (1854-1935), Vevey;
Private European Collection

Johann Conrad Seekatz, who came from a family of artists active in the Palatinate and who was trained as a church painter, was apprenticed to the Palatine court painter Ph. H. Brinckmann in Mannheim in 1748. In 1753 he was appointed second court painter to Landgrave Louis VIII of Hesse-Darmstadt. In Darmstadt, Seekatz painted biblical and mythological subjects, as well as animal pieces and occasionally also portraits. On the Frankfurt art market, his small genre scenes painted ‘in the Dutch manner’ were soon much in demand. He received numerous commissions not only from Privy Councillor Goethe, but also from the Count de Thoranc, known as ‘Royal Lieutenant’ (see Goethe’s Poetry and Truth). Around 1765, Seekatz began to devote himself to a group of large mythological subjects such as the Narcissus in Frankfurt. A highlight is the series of seventeen overdoors in Braunshardt Palace for George William of Hesse (today Wolfsgarten Palace and Schlossmuseum Darmstadt). Seekatz’s popularity is predominantly based on charming idealized scenes of country life very much in the rococo fashion, a genre for which the present pair is an excellent example.