Luise Max-Ehrler (Florence 1850-1920 Salzburg)
Das Ende vom Lied [The End of Love], also known as Eros Disarmed, also known as Cupid Chastised
oil on canvas
circa 1890
10.75 x 7 in.
signed lower right: L. Max-Ehrler
Andrea Rothe (formerly senior paintings conservator at The Getty) cleaned and conserved this painting, the last painting he conserved before his death in 2018.
Publication History:
Illustrirte Zeitung, No. 2439, March 29, 1890, p. 319 (Leipzig and Berlin: J. J.[Johann Jakob] Weber, 1890), reproducing wood engraving after the painting (see below on this webpage).
Ilustración artística (Barcelona: Imp. de Montaner y Simón, 1890), reproducing wood engraving after the painting.
Discussion:
The iconography of this little painting is sometimes referred to as “Cupid Chastised.” The bound twigs are a reference to the classical myth in which Venus (or, in another version, Mars) disciplines Cupid (Amor/Eros) for his mischievous behavior. Because someone (Venus or Mars) has also taken away Cupid’s arrows (note the empty quiver), this iconography is also sometimes called “Cupid Disarmed.” Max-Ehrler’s painting is unusual in that most paintings of this subject depict the act of chastising itself, as in Bartolomeo Manfredi’s “Cupid Chastised” of 1613 in the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Austrian painter Luise Max-Ehrler trained in Prague, Munich, and, ultimately, Vienna, where she studied with the renowned academic history painter Hans Makart (1840-1884). Her brother-in-law was the eccentric painter of monkeys, Gabriel von Max (1840-1915), whose work The Daulton Collection has collected in depth; her husband was the artist Heinrich Max (1847-1900).
“The End of Love” was perhaps Luise Max-Erhler’s best-known work; the painting was reproduced on prints and postcards that circulated widely in Europe and America. For an example, see below on this webpage a wood engraving after the painting that, in 1890, was published in Illustrirte Zeitung (Leipzig and Berlin), a German newspaper of the time.
In addition, there appears to be a duplicate original of the painting and its frame in a private collection in Switzerland (e-mail communication from the owner to The Daulton Collection, June 15, 2023).
