Verkoopster van kalenders 1814

Johann Adam Klein made this etching, titled ‘Calendar Seller’, in 1814. But note that it is dated for the New Year of 1815. What does it tell us about the function and place of art in early nineteenth-century Europe? For one thing, we might consider this image as evidence of a shift from aristocratic to bourgeois patronage in the arts, where the artist is now reliant on the market to earn a living. How else to explain his need to advertise his wares so directly? In the cultural and institutional context of post-Napoleonic Germany, the humble calendar had become a small but significant commodity, which marks the rising significance of the merchant classes. Klein’s image makes its appeal to a new class of consumers. If we dig into archives of the period, we can discover the emergence of a print market and learn more about the social life of the image. By understanding these contexts we can begin to understand the social and cultural conditions that shaped artistic production.