Adolf von Hüpsch

Baron von Hüpsch (1730–1805)

Wilhelm Carl Adolf von Hüpsch , actually Jean Guillaume Adolphe Fiacre Honvlez or mostly Baron von Hüpsch for short (born August 31, 1730 in Vielsalm in the province of Luxembourg ; † January 1, 1805 in Cologne ), was an art collector from Cologne.

Live and act

He was born the son of the lay judge and clerk Gerard Honvlez. His family was related by marriage to nobles, but he himself was not noble.

In 1755 he settled in Cologne and during this time took the title and name of his grandmother "von Hüpsch" from Lontzen near Aachen. He set up a cabinet in his house on Johannisstrasse in Cologne; it was open to visitors for an entrance fee; he expanded his collections through acquisitions, accepted gifts and exchanged museum objects and manuscripts. He used all of his income for his collection, which as "Baron von Hüpsch's cabinet" soon became an attraction for the first tourists to the Rhine.

Although he intended to hand over the collections to the city of Cologne, there was no interest there; therefore he came into contact with princes and kings, which, however, also proved difficult. In 1802 he had contact with Landgrave Ludwig X. von Hessen-Darmstadt , who bought parts of his collections, and in the will of 1804 the Landgrave was listed as his heir. After von Hüpsch's death, however, further complications arose with the city of Cologne. Ferdinand Franz Wallraf also took part in the valuation of the legacy . The Landgrave donated his house to the city of Cologne. The collection formed the basis for the Hessian State Museum Darmstadt and the manuscript department of the State and University Library in Darmstadt .

In 1775, Hüpsch was made an honorary member of the Electoral Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1790 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Exhibitions

• 2010: Medieval ivory works in dialogue , Bavarian National Museum , Munich, supplemented by works from our own holdings.
• 1976/1977: Ivory works from late antiquity to the high Middle Ages , Liebieghaus museum old plastic , Frankfurt am Main.

Works (selection)

• Clever and useful statesmanship or political maxims according to the rules of the most distinguished statesmen . Stahl, Düsseldorf approx. 1760 ( digitized version )
• Mahler's journey on the Lower Rhine: Curiosities of nature and art from the areas of the Lower Rhine . Author, Cologne on the Rhine; Weigel & Schneider, Nuremberg 1784- ( digitized , 3 booklets)
• Epigrammatography or collection of inscriptions of the older, middle and more recent times of the Low German provinces, the majority of which are unprinted . 2nd volumes. Cologne 1801 ( digitized version )
• In 1779 he wrote under a pseudonym: E. Ph. B. Freih. From Dethmaris' letter to his friends about the little work Iuliæ et Montium subterraneae, which was published in print by the ex-Jesuit Franz Beuth , and the continuation that recently followed .

literature

• Johann Jakob Merlo :  Hüpsch, Adolf Baron . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, p. 427 f.
• Adolf Schmidt: Baron Hüpsch and his cabinet. A contribution to the history of the court library and the museum in Darmstadt . Darmstadt 1906 Online
• The collections of the Baron von Hüpsch. A Cologne art gallery around 1800 . Exhibition of the Hessian State Museum, supplemented from holdings of the State and University Library Darmstadt in the Schnütgen Museum Cologne, 10 August to 18 October 1964. Cologne 1964.
• Hermann Knaus:  Hüpsch, Adolf Baron. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 743 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Anton von Euw , Herbert Beck , Peter C. Bol (eds.): Ivory work from late antiquity to the high Middle Ages. From the Hüpsch collection of the Hessian State Museum Darmstadt . Frankfurt 1976.
• Gold and purple: the picture decorations of the early and high medieval manuscripts from the Hüpsch collection in the Hessian State Museum in Darmstadt. Darmstadt 2001. ISBN 3-926527-58-7
• Theo Jülich: The medieval ivory works of the Hessian State Museum, Darmstadt , Schnell & Steiner Verlag, Regensburg 2007 ISBN 978-3-7954-2023-9

Web links

• Written estate, portrait ( memento from November 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 12.8 MB)
• TU Darmstadt: ... the written estate of Baron von Hüpsch has been extensively restored

Individual evidence

1. ↑ digitized version .