Artwork Page for Vita Beata

Details / Information for Vita Beata

Vita Beata

1908

Cornelia Paczka Wagner

(German, 1864–1930)
Culture
Germany
Medium
Algraph
Measurements
Image: 47.8 x 64.4 cm (18 13/16 x 25 3/8 in.); Sheet: 56 x 74 cm (22 1/16 x 29 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
L. E. Holden Fund 2025.131
Copyright
Copyright
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

Early in her career, Cornelia Paczka Wagner studied alongside the well-known German printmaker Käthe Kollwitz.

Description

Cornelia Paczka Wagner was among the few women to learn printmaking techniques in late nineteenth-century Berlin. After training in Berlin and Munich, she traveled to Rome and began to create imagery inspired by imagination and an idealized classical past. Here, a woman appears interrupted while reading in an Arcadian landscape, surrounded by a decorative border evoking femininity and the arts. Paczka Wagner created the print using algraphy, an unusual technique that replaced the stone typically used in lithography with a portable and inexpensive aluminum plate.
A horizontally oriented print in monochrome brown depicts a central arch beneath a sun with radiating, wavy lines. Outside, a nude man on the left and woman on the right reach inward. Inside, a woman holding a book stands before classical architecture. A lower register contains five panels showing varied scenes above the text "VITA BEATA." Fine stippling and tonal line work define the detailed figures and classical composition.

Vita Beata

1908

Cornelia Paczka Wagner

(German, 1864–1930)
Germany

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