Philipp Friedrich Gwinner

Philipp Friedrich Gwinner, lithograph around 1860

Philipp Friedrich Gwinner (born January 11, 1796 in Frankfurt am Main ; † December 11, 1868 there ) was a German lawyer, art historian and one of the last mayors of the Free City of Frankfurt before the Prussian occupation .

life and work

Gwinner was the sixth and youngest child of Johann Michael Gwinner (1751–1824) and Susanna Elisabeth b. Hestermann (1760-1831). His father was a trained baker and came from Württemberg . In 1785 he started his own business as a farmer and leased the Gutleuthof with 1,300 acres of arable land and meadows, located within the Frankfurter Landwehr , where his son Philipp was born in 1796.

Gwinner attended the Frankfurt grammar school from 1807 to 1811 and the grammar school in Darmstadt from 1811 to 1813. After the liberation of Frankfurt, he took part in the campaign against France from December 1813 to May 1814 as a war volunteer . He then studied law in Berlin , Giessen and Jena . From 1816 Gwinner was a member of the Christian-German fraternity / honorary mirror fraternity in Gießen and in 1817 became a member of the original fraternity and took part in the Wartburg Festival on October 18, 1817 .

After obtaining his doctorate in Gießen in 1818, he settled as a lawyer in his hometown and in 1819 acquired Frankfurt citizenship . He had the revolutionary pamphlet question and answer booklet prepared by his Gießen federal brother Friedrich Wilhelm Schulz about all kinds of things that are particularly needed in the German Fatherland anonymously printed. However , he remained undiscovered by the subsequent persecution of demagogues and subsequently made a career in the political and legal bodies of the Free City of Frankfurt . In 1823 he became Criminalrath ( investigating judge ), in 1826 a member of the Legislative Assembly , 1831 of the Permanent Citizens' Representation , 1835 Senator , 1836 member of the City Court , 1854 lay judge of the Court of Appeal and 1862 Syndic of the Free City of Frankfurt.

His attempts to be elected mayor , however, were initially unsuccessful. It was not until the twelfth attempt in 1864 that he was elected senior mayor . He was the last person who could complete a full term (January 1 to December 31, 1865) and represented the rights and freedom of Frankfurt against Prussia in the drone note affair . His successor was Karl Konstanz Viktor Fellner , who lost his office with the occupation of the city by Prussian troops on July 18, 1866 and committed suicide a few days later.

Gwinner was an art lover and published numerous smaller articles on art history, including in the archive for Frankfurt's history and art . His most important work was the publication Kunst und Künstler in Frankfurt am Main from the 13th century until the opening of the Städel'schen Kunstinstitut , published in 1862 . After Heinrich Sebastian Hüsgen first attempted a Frankfurt art history in 1780 with his Nachrichten von Franckfurt Artists and Art Things and the Artistic Magazine in 1790, Gwinner was only the second author ever to devote extensive research to the topic. Although Gwinner Hüsgen explicitly praised his courage in the introduction, he corrected a lot of things that had been overtaken by research over the past 80 years.

Despite the Frankfurt artist 1223–1700 by Walther Karl Zülch , who was authoritative for Frankfurt art history and published in 1935, “the Gwinner” has hardly lost its relevance today. It includes the 18th century, which Zülch did not deal with, and goes beyond that in the case of individual artists, such as the work of Matthäus Merian , much more in depth. In addition to artist biographies, Gwinner also documented the Frankfurt monuments and private art collections in the mid-19th century. In doing so, he recorded a state before the building boom of the second half of the 19th century, which gives the work a high documentary value.

He was a member of the Frankfurt Masonic Lodge "Socrates for steadfastness".

He died after a brief illness on December 11, 1868 in Frankfurt am Main. His grave is in the Frankfurt main cemetery . His son was Wilhelm Gwinner , his grandson Arthur von Gwinner , a great-granddaughter Charlotte von Gwinner .

A street in the Seckbach district of Frankfurt is named after Gwinner .

Fonts

• Art and artists in Frankfurt am Main from the 13th century to the opening of the Städel'schen Kunstinstitut. Joseph Baer, ​​Frankfurt 1862 ( digitized version ).
  • to additions and corrections . Joseph Baer, ​​Frankfurt 1867 ( digitized version ).

literature

• Georg Eduard Steitz :  Gwinner, Philipp . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, p. 240 f.
• Sabine Hock : Gwinner, Philipp Friedrich in the Frankfurter Personenlexikon (revised online version), as well as in: Wolfgang Klötzer (Ed.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . First volume. A – L (=  publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 1 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7829-0444-3 , p. 291 .
• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 2: F-H. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0809-X , p. 206.

Web links

• Literature by and about Philipp Friedrich Gwinner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Gwinner, Philipp Friedrich. Hessian biography. (As of December 11, 2019). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Peter Kaupp (edit.): Stamm-Buch of the Jenaische Burschenschaft. The members of the original fraternity 1815-1819 (= treatises on student and higher education. Vol. 14). SH-Verlag, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-89498-156-3 , p. 116.