Christian Fürchtegott Gellert 1774

Curator: Here we have Johann Friedrich Bause’s portrait of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. It’s an engraving, a small print, really, housed here at the Harvard Art Museums. What are your initial thoughts? Editor: Well, it feels like a stage set. The portrait is framed within an oval, but it’s the allegorical figures around it that really grab me—the cherub, the mask, the lyre. It’s all very theatrical. Curator: Indeed. The mask, of course, represents theater and the lyre alludes to Gellert's poetry, but note how the mask is discarded, lying on the ground, while the cherub seems almost mischievous. I wonder if Bause is hinting at a tension between the outward persona and the inner spirit. Editor: Exactly. The cherub feels much more vital than the rather stoic portrait. Is this an expression of Gellert's influence in the arts? It feels like a performance, this entire print. Curator: Perhaps. It's a visual eulogy, a remembrance crafted through symbols. Bause invites us to contemplate Gellert's character and legacy through the lens of artistic expression. Editor: A clever and carefully constructed homage. It leaves me pondering the different faces we present to the world versus who we truly are.