# Carl Friedrich Lessing, Carl Sohn, and Theodor Hildebrandt

[View the canonical artwork record](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/hbner-julius-r06d6bcd23f065c/carl-friedrich-lessing-carl-sohn-and-theodor-hildebrandt-r5835147d55f580>)

## Artwork

- Artist: [HÜBNER, Julius](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/hbner-julius-r06d6bcd23f065c>)
- Date: 1801-1850
- Technique: Oil on canvas, 29 x 59 cm

## Commentary

Friendship pictures, a tradition going back to Holbein, were revived in the nineteenth century. One of these, by Julius Hübner, shows the painters Carl Friedrich Lessing, Carl Sohn, and Theodor Hildebrandt. Their trompe l&#39;oeil, &lt;a onclick=&#34;return OpenOther\(&#39;/html/e/eyck\_van/jan/01page/12thymot.html&#39;\)&#34; href=&#34;/html/e/eyck\_van/jan/01page/12thymot.html&#34;&gt;inscribed frame recalls those of Jan van Eyck,&lt;/a&gt; the pictorial format is close to that of the &lt;a onclick=&#34;return OpenOther\(&#39;/html/m/master/xunk\_it/xunk\_it3/fivemen.html&#39;\)&#34; href=&#34;/html/m/master/xunk\_it/xunk\_it3/fivemen.html&#34;&gt;early-fifteenth-century image&lt;/a&gt; formerly attributed to Uccello. Hübner&#39;s friends were students of a prominent Berlin academician, Wilhelm von Schadow, son of Germany&#39;s best-known Neo-Classical sculptor. As if invisible to one another, they are united by Hübner&#39;s all-encompassing portrayal. These friends are shown with a precision suitable to the year of their depiction: 1839, when Daguerre presented his invention to the French Academy, eliciting the famous response that henceforth painting is dead.

## Attribution

[Web Gallery of Art](<https://beta.wga.hu/pages/about>)