Romanticism Exhibition

Romantic Painting Cabinet

As if by chance, Jagemann depicts a small boy in a dress pulling his younger brother in a wicker wagon. The boys are the illegitimate sons of Grand Duke Carl August and his mistress the actress Caroline Jagemann, later von Heygendorff, the painter’s sister. Since Jagemann could not depicit the illegitimate children in an imposing style, he placed them in the Park an der Ilm, thus making use of the open air form of portraiture, popular in England at the time.