(Göttingen 1786–1831 Rome) Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me, signed and inscribed Riepenhausen Rome, oil on canvas, 80 x 102.3 cm, framed, (GS)

In this impressive painting Riepenhausen takes as his canonical theme the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, verse 14: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God”. This scene was often portrayed, both by the Roman classicists and the Nazarenes. Here Riepenhausen cleverly combines citations from antique sculptures and reliefs, as well as from the works of Raffael, his great role model. The brothers Franz and Johannes Riepenhausen were called the Siamese twins of painting for good reason, as they worked together amicably in Rome. They are representatives of that complicated transitional period in which elements of Classicism, which revisited antique elements, mixed with Romanticism, resulting in a mixture which was part contradiction, part unity. The Riepenhausens arrived in Rome in 1805, never to leave again. They belonged to the group of German Romans who sought their role models amongst the Italian painters of the medieval and Renaissance periods. But in contrast to the Nazarenes, who tended towards the medieval period, the Riepenhausens’ interest in the antique remained an elementary force in their artistic creativity. As a result, they can definitely be categorised as neo-classicists - the aesthetics of the late 18th century - rather than early 19th century Romantics. This also reflects the influence of Wilhelm Tischbein, Franz Riepenhausen’s first teacher in Göttingen. Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Younger took Franz Riepenhausen on as an apprentice in Kassel in 1804 where he refined his style, one modelled on Classicism. Riepenhausen was in close contact with the major artistic and intellectual figures of his time and was very popular, especially in Northern Germany, where his conversion to Catholicism was a subject of much discussion.