Jean Laurent Legeay

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Jean Laurent Legeay , also Le Geay and other spellings, (* after 1710 in Paris , † after 1786 in Rome or France) was a French architect, painter and engraver .

Live and act

Schwerin palace garden

Jean Laurent Legeay completed his studies at the Académie royale d'architecture in Paris and received the Prix ​​de Rome in 1732 for the design of a church portal . The award was linked to a scholarship for a study visit to Italy at the Académie de France à Rome , which was housed in the Palazzo Mancini on Corso from 1725 to 1803. After a delay of several years, he did not stay in Rome until 1739 and returned to Paris in 1742, where he possibly worked until 1748, designing theater sets for Jesuits and giving architecture courses. His students included Etienne-Louis Boullée , Charles de Wailly (1730–1798), Pierre-Louis Moreau-Desproux (1727–1793) and Marie-Joseph Peyre (1730–1785). Other sources assume that he came to Berlin as early as 1745. Documented is the collaboration with Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff on the drafts for the St. Hedwig's Church, built between 1747 and 1773 based on the model of the Roman pantheon , today's St. Hedwig's Cathedral , which he published in 1747 in a seven-sheet publication Copper engravings under the title L'église catholique qui se bastit à Berlin sur les dessins du roi . Whether he was also involved in the construction planning could never be determined with certainty and has been completely ruled out in recent studies. Legeay, who called himself Architecte et Peintre , published the festive decoration he designed for the laying of the foundation stone on July 13, 1747 , as an etching and published the sheet on September 9 of the same year in the “ Berlinische Nachrichten ”. A special edition of the newspaper that appeared just two days after the ceremony was sent to the Vatican in Rome in an Italian translation with a commendatory note : “The excellence of the music, the number of spectators, the beautiful decoration of this building, invented and executed by one of Mr. Leyer famous architects, [...] all this together gave a more noble, more precious, more pious spectacle than one has ever seen before. ”In 1751 he was appointed honorary member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts and Mechanical Sciences .

On October 16, 1748 Legeay entered the service of Duke Christian II. Ludwig von Mecklenburg-Schwerin as a master builder , who appointed him court building director in 1752. As can be seen from an old draft, he built an arbor at the old Kleinow hunting lodge, Ludwigslust since 1754 , and in the early 1750s he was responsible for the design of the gardens according to plans by the Schwerin castle gardener Gallas, among other things with the management of the fountain instructed. In addition to painting and stucco work, he also made the decisive drafts for the redesign of the Schwerin palace garden, which was carried out between 1748 and 1756, with the baroque water parterre in the form of a double-armed canal cross and flanking lawns, tree quarters and the sculptures by the sculptor Balthasar that were erected in 1752 Permoser . According to his designs, a comedy house, the so-called Barocksaal , was built in Rostock in 1750 , adjacent to the ducal palace built in 1714 on today's Universitätsplatz . The hall structure is dominated by a small hall in the basement and a ballroom with rococo decorations, which takes up almost the entire upper floor.

Elevation draft of the south pavilion of the Communs with the adjacent colonnade, around 1764
Sheet from the Collection de Divers Sujets de Vases, Tombeaux, Ruines et Fontaines […]

After long arguments with the master builder AW Horst , Legeay asked for his departure and in 1756 followed Frederick II's call to the Prussian court. With the participation of the court gardener Joachim Ludwig Heydert , the putti wall named after its figurative decoration was built according to his plans between 1764 and 1766 below the picture gallery in Potsdam's Sanssouci Park . A year earlier he was called in to plan the New Palais, built between 1763 and 1769, and the associated farm buildings, the so-called communs . Due to the collaboration of the architects Johann Gottfried Büring , Heinrich Ludwig Manger and Carl von Gontard , who joined later, it is not possible to precisely define the share of Legeays in the guest castle. However, Legeay is responsible for the overall layout of the communs built between 1766 and 1769 with the connecting, semicircular colonnade in the classicist Baroque style . At the request of Frederick II, Gontard revised the drafts shortly before the start of construction and made changes to the facade design and the colonnade. In this context, Legeay fell out with Frederick II, so that he left Prussia in 1765 and moved to England.

In London, he made a draft for the palace and park in Ludwigslust and sent it to Friedrich , the son and successor of the Mecklenburg Duke Christian II. Ludwig , who had the architect Johann Joachim Busch converted it into his residence. In his plan, Legeay proposed a baroque park, which he modified in parts in the sense of English-romantic horticulture. After that he only worked as a copper engraver. In addition to the aforementioned sequence of stitches with the St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin, he published six sheets of Fontane per laqua del inventione di Giovani Lorenzo Legeay in 1767 , six sheets of Rovine inventione in 1768 , six sheets of tombeaux and six sheets of Vasì , which he published in 1770 under the title Collection de Divers Sujets de Vases, Tombeaux, Ruines et Fontaines, Utiles Artistes, Inventée et Gravée par JL Le Geay, Architecte à Paris, chez Mondhare in Paris, where he went back around 1770. He also published six sheets with the title Fontaines Paris chez Huquier and one sheet Cartouche . Towards the end of his life, Legeay was mainly concerned with the invention of nautical devices. From St. Chignan near Narbonne in the south of France, he asked Duke Friedrich Franz I of Mecklenburg in September 1786 for a pension in order to be able to live in Rome. It is unknown whether this was granted or whether he died in France or Italy.

There are only a few buildings and garden designs executed by Jean Laurent Legeay. Rather, his talent lay in designing and drawing. During his stay in Rome he dealt with the architecture of antiquity, which he depicted imaginatively on copper engravings, similar to Piranesi's pictorial compositions in the manner of Capriccios . The drawings and series of engravings in suggestive architectural representations influenced the scholarship holders of the Académie de France à Rome, who brought a new view of antiquity after their return to the profane architecture of France from the 1740s, from which the architectural style of classicism developed.

literature

Web links

Commons : Jean-Laurent Legeay  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Hans Reuther:  Legeay, Jean-Laurant. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 61 ( digitized version ).
  2. ^ Dietrich Erben: Paris and Rome. The state-controlled art relations under Ludwig XIV. Studies from the Warburg House, Volume 9, p. 147.
  3. ↑ a b c Legeay, Jean Laurent . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 22 : Krügner – Leitch . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1928, p. 564 .
  4. ^ Hans-Joachim Giersberg: Friedrich as builder. Berlin 1986, p. 269.
  5. ^ Carl Brecht: The St. Hedwig Church. Berlin 1873, p. 4. In: Association for the history of Berlin: Mixed writings in connection with the Berlin Chronicle and the document book. Berlin 1888
  6. ↑ a b Gerd Dettmann : The old castle in Kleinow. In: Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology: Yearbooks of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology. Volume 86, 1922, p. 15.
  7. ↑ Gerd Dettmann: The old castle in Kleinow. P. 17.
  8. ↑ Legeay, Jean Laurent . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 22 : Krügner – Leitch . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1928, p. 564 . With the note: "but not as early as 1754, as Nicolai and all literature after him indicate."
  9. ^ Foundation Palaces and Gardens Potsdam-Sanssouci (ed.): Potsdam Palaces and Gardens. Building and gardening art from the 17th to the 20th century. P. 126.
  10. ^ Waltraud Volk: Potsdam. Historic streets and squares today. P. 55.
  11. ↑ Legeay, Jean Laurent . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 22 : Krügner – Leitch . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1928, p. 564 . With the note: "but not, as Nicolai and the later literature indicate, to Mecklenburg."

Remarks

German translation from French and Italian:

  1. ↑ The Catholic church built in Berlin according to the king's designs
  2. ↑ architect and painter
  3. ^ Fountain system / water fountain designed by Jean Laurent Legeay
  4. ↑ Invention of ruins [design of ruins]
  5. ↑ Tombs
  6. ^ Vases, vessels
  7. ↑ Collection of various objects from vessels, tombs, ruins and fountains, useful items for artists, inventors and engravers by JL Le Greay, architect in Paris, [published] by Mondhare
  8. ↑ Paris fountain near Huquier .
  9. ↑ cartridge
personal data
SURNAME Legeay, Jean Laurent
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Le Geay, Jean Laurent; LeGay, Jean-Laurent; Lejeay, JL; Lejeay, GL; Legeay, JL; Liger, Jean-Laurent; Lejay, Jean-Laurent; Leger, Jean-Laurent; Jeay, GL le
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French architect, painter and engraver
DATE OF BIRTH after 1710
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH after 1786
Place of death Rome or France