Italia und Germania (Italy and Germany) is an allegorical painting of the painter

Friedrich Overbeck Johann Friedrich Overbeck (3 July 1789 – 12 November 1869) was a German painter. As a member of the Nazarene movement, he also made four etchings. Early life and education Born in Lübeck, his ancestors for three generations had been Protes ...

, finished in 1828. The painting shows two women inclining to each other, symbolizing the friendship between the two countries or cultures they represent:

Italia Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

and

Germania Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north- ...

. At that time, both Italy and Germany were cultural regions but not unified national states. Overbeck painted it in the style of the Nazarenes. The original is displayed in the

Neue Pinakothek The Neue Pinakothek (, ''New Pinacotheca'') is an art museum in Munich, Germany. Its focus is European Art of the 18th and 19th centuries, and it is one of the most important museums of art of the nineteenth century in the world. Together with th ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, Germany. Other versions can be seen in the Sammlung Georg Schäfer in

Schweinfurt Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultural and educational hub. The urban agg ...

and in the Galerie Neue Meister in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

. The two women on the painting sit on a bench in front of a landscape. The left woman (Italia) has dark hair and wears a laurel wreath. The background shows a typically Italian landscape with rocky coast. On the right side the background contains a German city in gothic style, Germania is blond with a wreath of flowers. Both women sit close to each other, in amical inclination, holding hands.

Historical-political context

At the time of the painting's creation, both "Italy" and "Germany" were merely cultural and geographic umbrella terms for politically fragmented regions in central and southern Europe divided into various principalities (cf.

Deutscher Bund The German Confederation (german: Deutscher Bund, ) was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, w ...

and

Risorgimento The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...

), each of which was about half a century later became political entities in the nation-states of the

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...

(1861) and the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

(1871) during the 1860s and 1870s.

References

Literature

* Wieland Schmied in Zusammenarbeit mit Tilmann Buddensieg, Andreas Franzke und Walter Grasskamp (Hrsg.): ''„Harenberg Museum der Malerei. 525 Meisterwerke aus sieben Jahrhunderten“''. Dortmund: Harenberg Lexikon Verlag, 1999. * Ausstellungskatalog „Italia und Germania“ der Staatlichen Graphischen Sammlung München, Neue Pinakothek M., 20. Februar – 14. April 2002: ''„Johann Friedrich Overbeck – Italia und Germania“''. München, 2002. (PATRIMONIA 224) National personifications Germany–Italy relations 19th-century paintings Paintings in the Galerie Neue Meister Paintings in Bavaria Collection of the Neue Pinakothek {{19C-painting-stub