Anna Waser

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Anna Waser: self-portrait, 83 × 68 cm, painted 1691.
Portrait of Anna Waser around 1770.

Anna Waser (baptized October 16, 1678 in Zurich ; † September 20, 1714 there ) was a Swiss painter and etcher of the high baroque . She is considered the first Swiss painter in history to be known by name .

Life

Anna Waser was born in 1678 as the fifth child of a wealthy and respected family in Zurich. Her parents were Esther Müller and the magistrate Johann Rudolf Waser, an educated and unprejudiced man who promoted the daughter's talent as much as he could. He had her trained as a painter, although this contradicted all social conventions. When she couldn't learn anything from her first teacher, Johannes Sulzer , he took the fourteen-year-old to Bern to see Joseph Werner , one of the leading Swiss painters. For four years she was the only girl among his male students in his «learning workshop for painting». Then she returned to her family in Zurich. There she received commissioned portraits from a large circle of friends. The young painter was also noticed outside the city. In 1699, Anna Waser was now 21 years old, the art-loving Count Wilhelm Moritz von Solms-Braunfels appointed her as court painter at his Braunfels Castle on the Lahn in Hesse. That could have been the beginning of a great career. But that never happened.

Instead of going on a planned trip to Paris, she was asked back to Zurich because her mother was ill and her brother Johann Rudolf, a tutor in Braunfels, decided to travel to Holland as a field chaplain. From around 1702 Anna Waser had to take care of her parents' household in Zurich and painting became a sideline. She just painted a portrait here and there, or one of those little shepherd scenes for which she was famous at the time. In 1708 she edited some calligraphic templates together with her sisters Anna Maria and Elisabeth Waser . She finally sent her autobiography, a self-portrait executed in silver pen technique and other works of art to Jacob von Sandrart for a planned update of the artist lexicon Teutsche Academie founded by his uncle Joachim von Sandrart . However, this update did not take place because Jacob von Sandrart died that same year. An old chronicle reports: "At the age of 30 she lost her body and soul". For a few years it dawned on itself. One of her last works, a silver pen drawing, is dated 1711. In 1714 Anna Waser died at the age of 35 as a result of a fall. She lived at 19 Münstergasse in Zurich.

plant

Her works, so much praised by contemporary critics, have almost all been lost, with the exception of a few drawings and miniatures . The aforementioned autobiography has also been lost. Her descendant Maria Waser (1878–1939) wrote the novel “ The Story of Anna Waser ” in 1913 . The self-portrait from 1691 was probably made through the encouragement of Anna Waser's teacher Johannes Sulzer, whom she depicted as a memory in her self-portrait on the easel.

Honor

Memorial plaque of Anna Waser on the house "Zur Alten Post", Münstergasse 19 in Zurich
Memorial plaque of Anna Waser on the house "Zur Alten Post", Münstergasse 19 in Zurich

Anna Waser was honored by the Gesellschaft zu Fraumünster on the occasion of the first women's honor on Sechseläuten in 1998 . Your memorial plaque is on the house "Zur alten Post" at Münstergasse 19 in Zurich.

literature

  • Carl Brun: Swiss artist lexicon . Ed .: Swiss Art Association. III. Tape. Huber, Frauenfeld 1913, p. 427 ff . ( Digitized version ).
  • Gottfried Sello: painters from five centuries. Ellert and Richter, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-89234-077-3 .
  • Maria Waser: The story of Anna Waser - A novel from the turn of the 17th century. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1913 ( digitized version of the 1922 edition ); New edition: Classen, Zurich 1978, ISBN 3-7172-0279-0
  • Verena Bodmer-Gessner: The Zurich women, Small cultural history of the Zurich women. Verlagberichthaus, Zurich 1961, pp. 70/71, pp. 179/180
  • Susann L. Pflüger: New Year's Gazette of the Gesellschaft zu Fraumünster for the year 2016 (tenth item), Edition Gutenberg Volume 10, No. 10, Zurich 2016, ISSN 1663-5264

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Kaspar Fuessli: History and illustration of the best Mahler in Switzerland . tape 2 . David Geßner, Zurich 1757, p. 228 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
personal data
SURNAME Waser, Anna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter and etcher
DATE OF BIRTH October 1678
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH September 20, 1714
Place of death Zurich