Feinbäckerei im Kurpark zu Kissingen

Bad Kissingen in Bavaria was a fashionable spa resort in the nineteenth century, drawing aristocrats, wealthy bourgeois, and European royalty to its mineral springs and elegant promenades. Menzel visited Kissingen in his later career and documented the social life of the Kurpark — the spa gardens — with his characteristic combination of social observation and visual appetite. This 1893 canvas depicting a Feinbäckerei (fine confectionery or patisserie) in the Kurpark records one of the resort's characteristic pleasures: the consumption of elaborate pastries and confectionery in an elegantly appointed setting. By 1893 Menzel was in his late seventies, and his late works continue to demonstrate the extraordinary energy and precision that made him remarkable among nineteenth-century artists. The spa resort subject allowed him to observe a social world of consumption, leisure, and display quite different from the Berlin court ceremonial that occupied much of his mature output.

The pastry display and its elaborate sugar confections create a still-life challenge within the genre scene: how to render the detail and color of elaborate pastry alongside the figures of patrons and staff.