Thoma’s Italian gardener
Hans Thoma
Hans Thoma the artist
“Titian or Thoma?“
“We went into modest Italian inns and taverns, sitting between Italians amazed that my wife did not understand the language. After all, she looked just like a woman from Rome (later I also painted her in Italian dress as a gardener).”
Hans Thoma’s Im Winter des Lebens (“In the winter of life”), his memoirs from 1919, recall this trip to Italy with his wife Cella. There, they spent days together working on studies in the countryside around Rome.
Thoma’s gardener
Thoma’s painting La Giardiniera from 1881 portrays his wife dressed in traditional Italian style, with a basket of roses on her lap. On the left, the view opens to show a fountain in front of a landscape with a group of green trees; to the right, the background is closed off by a round column set in front of a light Italianate building. Rather dreamily, Cella gazes upwards at a point out of the picture.
Hans Thoma and Cella Berteneder met in Munich in 1875 and married two years later. Not only did Cella often model for Thoma’s paintings, but throughout her life she played a crucial role in supporting his career. Herself an artist, Cella initially studied with her then later husband. Many written accounts testify to her importance in Thoma’s life, as do his many portraits of her.
The artist and his wife on their travels
This portrait dates from a time when Thoma and his family were living in Frankfurt, a city where he soon found the first supporters and promoters of his art.
The physician Dr. Otto Eiser recommended Thoma to Charles Minoprio, a Frankfurt merchant working in Liverpool. In 1880, Minoprio commissioned Thoma to travel to Italy and paint some pictures for him.
Cella accompanied her husband on this trip, which lasted several weeks. They began by staying with their friend Louis Eysen in Bolzano before moving on to Florence to visit Arnold Böcklin. Afterwards they went to Naples, Sorrento and Pompei. Throughout the trip, Thoma constantly prepared landscape and figural studies.
Bella Italia
In this portrait of Cella, worked up after they returned, Thoma took works by Italian Renaissance artists as models for both his motif and style. In particular, this manner of depicting a female figure resonates with Titian’s female portraits. The flowers in the basket on Cella’s lap allude to her work as a painter of flower still lifes.
In total, Thoma travelled to Italy three times. The landscapes there became as familiar to him as his home region of the Black Forest, also found in many of his works. In La Giardiniera, Thoma combined his love for his wife Cella with his love of Italy.
Initially, this portrait was owned by Eduard Küchler, one of the couple’s close friends in Frankfurt. In 1902, he gifted it to the Kunsthalle during Thoma’s tenure as the gallery’s director.
Basic data
| Title | La Giardiniera |
|---|---|
| Artist | Hans Thoma |
| Date | 1881 |
| Measurements Plastic | H 86.5cm W 69cm |
| Material | Oil on canvas |