Ludwig Knaus
There's No Fool Like an Old Fool
Oil on canvas (relined). 63 x 49 cm.
The subject, composition and lighting of the present work are almost entirely identical to a piece with the same title ("Alter schützt vor Torheit nicht") kept in a private collection in Munich. Both versions, the Munich piece dated 1851 and the present work of the almost exact same dimensions, can be ascribed to the early period of this artist, who was born in Wiesbaden and taught at the academy in Düsseldorf. The composition of the present work is found in a drawing by Ludwig Knaus from 1852, and is also recorded as a lithograph in the third annual issue of the "Düsseldorfer Künstler-Album" of 1853 (cf. Boekels, Ursula Mathilde: Die Genremalerei von Ludwig Knaus (1829-1910). Das Frühwerk, Diss. Bonn 1996, Bonn 1999, p. 251f, illus. 110). Boekels was unaware of the present version in oils, but it could be the piece mentioned by Boetticher as no. 13 (Friedrich von Boetticher: Malerwerke des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Leipzig 1891-1901, reprint 1941, vol. 1,2, p. 706), whilst the Munich work can be identified as no. 8 (cf. exhib. cat. Ludwig Knaus 1829-1910, Wiesbaden, Kassel und Düsseldorf 1979-80, Hanau 1979, p. 141, no. 30).