Lot 1251 Dα

Christian Leberecht Vogel was not only a successful painter, but was also highly regarded by his contemporaries as an art theorist and professor at the Academy in Dresden. As an artist, he is mainly famed for his portraits of children, a genre to which he applied himself more thoroughly after his marriage in 1787. Of his many well regarded child portraits, one was particularly popular. Namely that of his two young sons Carl Christian and Friedrich posed before a landscape and looking at a book, which was so well liked that he had to produce several versions of it. One such copy was purchased by King Friedrich August of Saxony and is now kept in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. It is not known how many versions of this piece were actually painted by the artist, but several copies have been offered at auction within the past few years. Of which, the present work is certainly of the highest quality.
Since the eldest son Carl Christian was born in 1788 and is here depicted at age three or four, the painting can be dated to around 1791/1792.