Grandma’s and Grandpa’s Visit

Mánes painted the picture for Vojtěch knight Lanna in 1871 towards the end of Mánes’s belated studies with Ludwig Knaus and Benjamin Vautier in Düsseldorf. The sober dress of Alsatian peasants and the generally darker colours, in which contours of objects fade away in the dusk of a village interior bespeak Mánes’s new training. By then the focus of his interest were children and their world - and this subject enhanced the emotional component. This sentimental scene showing the meeting of grandparents and their small grandson was successfully exhibited in 1871 in Düsseldorf and in 1873 at the World Fair in Paris.