BERLIN.- Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki was a superstar among Berlin artists in the late 18th century. To mark his 300th birthday, the Kupferstichkabinett, in cooperation with the Akademie der Knste and the Gemldegalerie ‒ Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, is dedicating a cabinet exhibition to the artist, showcasing more than twenty of his most important works from all periods in his oeuvre. These works continue to inspire us with their subtle humour, but are also thought-provoking. Even now, the socio-political issues and Enlightenment subjects they touch upon and explore have not lost their relevance.
Jean Calas’ Farewell
Chodowiecki’s most significant works from around 1767, depictions of Der Abschied des Jean Calas von seiner Familie (The Parting of Jean Calas from His Family) ‒ from three collections ‒ can be viewed together for the first time at one location. The basis for Chodowiecki’s composition was the tragic fate of Jean Calas, a merchant from Toulouse. The subject became one of the Enlightenment’s most famous legal scandals.
Calas, a Protestant (Lutheran/Reformed Christian), belonged to a religious minority subject to strong repression in Catholic France at the time. When one of his sons took his own life in 1761, the family initially tried to portray the suicide as a murder to secure a Christian burial for their son. As a result, Jean Calas himself eventually came under suspicion of having strangled his son because of the son’s alleged intention to convert to Catholicism. Although there was no evidence for this accusation, religious fanaticism directed against Protestantism led to Jean Calas being sentenced to death. His public execution took place on 10 March 1762.
Appalled by this miscarriage of justice, the philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) wrote his treatise “On Tolerance” (1763), securing the posthumous exoneration of Jean Calas and his family in 1765.
Chodowiecki’s dramatic and highly emotional depiction of the moment when Calas, condemned to death, says goodbye to his distraught family, is one of the defining images of the Enlightenment. The composition was intended to stir up emotions and empathy, which it was believed would contribute to a viewer’s moral development.
Enlightenment Themes
Alongside Chodowiecki’s key painting from the Gemldegalerie and all the accompanying drawings and prints, the exhibition features Chodowiecki’s red chalk drawings featuring a network of Berlin’s Enlightenment thinkers, including the writer and publisher Friedrich Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn, a philosopher and theologian whose writings focused on religion. They represent the many intellectuals of that time who advocated for a new culture of debate and discourse and fought against conspiracy theories and esotericism. In Chodowiecki’s extensive body of prints and drawings ‒ a selection of which is on view in the exhibition ‒ he addressed Enlightenment themes including education, family, and social order, while contributing to the dissemination of these new discourses.
Chodowiecki 300
The cabinet exhibition was curated by Mailena Mallach (Kupferstichkabinett), Anna Schultz (Akademie der Knste) and Sarah Salomon (Gemldegalerie). It is part of the “Chodowiecki 300” network, which is celebrating the versatile Berlin artist at various locations in 2026 to mark the 300th anniversary of his birth.
A cabinet exhibition of the Kupferstichkabinett as part of the Chodowiecki 300 anniversary programme, in cooperation with the Akademie der Knste, Berlin and the Gemldegalerie ‒ Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
