Lot Essay
Despite the tranquility and idyll of the scene of a farmer's wife cutting vegetables with a child watching, it can be assumed that, behind this veneer, there hides a personal tragedy that must have been particularly painful for the artist. For, only in the preceeding year, Pettenkofen had returned to Vienna from Paris after a year of study. He had taken with him the promise of marriage with the love of his life and, upon his return, with a post as professor at the Viennese academy, he would have been able to provide for a wife and, therefore, asked her to wait one year for his return. Her father, however, had more ambitious plans and arranged for his daughter's marriage to a bureaucrat with excellent career prospects.
During the time of this upheaval, Pettenkofen had planned to execute a painting of the Virgin Mary, to 'make up for her unknowingly severe sin' (Weixlgärtner, op. cit., p. 121) and donate it to the church of St. Martin in Klosterneuburg. The present picture, painted in the same location, thus must be viewed as a melancholic vision of what could have been. This idyll could, at least, be recreated in his imagination.
During the time of this upheaval, Pettenkofen had planned to execute a painting of the Virgin Mary, to 'make up for her unknowingly severe sin' (Weixlgärtner, op. cit., p. 121) and donate it to the church of St. Martin in Klosterneuburg. The present picture, painted in the same location, thus must be viewed as a melancholic vision of what could have been. This idyll could, at least, be recreated in his imagination.