The Lovers
- Medium
- Pen lithograph in brown on cream wove paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 44.4 × 56.2 cm (17 1/2 × 22 3/16 in.); Sheet: 49 × 60.3 cm (19 5/16 × 23 3/4 in.)
- Genre
- lithograph
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
printprints and drawingpaper (fiber product)lithograph
About
Johann Heinrich Ramberg studied history painting with Benjamin West in London from 1781 to 1788, but he found livelier inspiration in the English caricature tradition of William Hogarth and Thomas Rowlandson. On his return to Germany, he made his reputation by designing a classical curtain for a theater in his native Hannover, though he was more successful as a satirist and book illustrator. The Lovers, which is historicizing in its broad scale, slyly adds humor, romance, and a fairy-tale ambiance to Ramberg’s favorite theme: voyeurism. The postcoital pair, snug in their idyllic curtained bower, doze on, oblivious to the arrival of curious family members and pets.
