Alexander Trippel

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Alexander Trippel after a drawing by Johann Friedrich Clemens, 1775

Alexander Trippel (born September 23, 1744 in Schaffhausen , † September 24, 1793 in Rome ) was a sculptor who became known for two Goethe marble busts.

Life

Alexander Trippel was born on September 23, 1744 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Due to financial difficulties, his family had to move from Switzerland to London, where Alexander Trippel began an apprenticeship as an instrument maker, which he soon broke off unsatisfied. Alexander Trippel only came to art in a roundabout way. Ludwig Lücke (around 1703–1780) gave him drawing lessons. At the age of 15, Alexander Trippel moved to Copenhagen to attend the Royal Danish Academy of Art . During this time he was under the influence of the early classicist sculptor Johannes Wiedewelt (1731–1802) and Carl Frederik Stanley (1740–1813), with whom he worked in the workshop. Both inspired him to study antiquity in Rome .

In Paris he met the Swiss copper engraver and art dealer Christian von Mechel (1737-1817), who encouraged and supported him. In the autumn of 1776 Alexander Trippel traveled to Rome. However, he did not succeed in gaining a foothold, so he temporarily returned to Switzerland before finally moving to Rome in 1778. From Rome he tried unsuccessfully to become known in Prussia . His memorial draft for Frederick the Great was rejected. His application for the vacant position as court sculptor in Dresden was unsuccessful. He was only accepted as an honorary member of the Prussian Academy of the Arts . Alexander Trippel stayed in Rome until his death on September 24, 1793. His sculptor's workshop enjoyed a great reputation there. For a time, famous sculptors such as Gottfried Schadow (1764–1850) and Johann Jakob Schmid (1759–1798) worked for him .

meaning

In the 1990s, his works and creations were reviewed and upgraded in terms of art history. Like Tischbein with his large portrait, Trippel has been preserved in the memory of posterity by his two marble busts of Goethe, which are in the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar (2nd version 1790) and in Arolsen Castle (1st version 1788) are located. One of them, in turn, was copied in marble from the portrait of Trippel by Hermann Knaur , which is in the Augusteum of the University of Leipzig . A copy of Trippel's Goethe bust is in the Ernst-Haeckel-Haus in Jena , with which the zoologist Ernst Haeckel's relationship to Goethe was also supposed to be expressed externally .

Works (selection)

literature

  • Red. Jürg Albrecht: Alexander Trippel (1744–1793) - Sculptures and Drawings - Exhibition September 25 to November 21, 1993, ed. from the Museum zu Allerheiligen in Schaffhausen, in addition. with the Swiss Institute for Art Research
  • Dieter Ulrich : Alexander Trippel (1744–1793) as a "case". Origin, identity and sense of belonging of a Swiss sculptor as part of the turn to German-Roman classicism, in: Pascal Griener, Kornelia Imesch (ed.): Classicisms and Cosmopolitanism. Program or problem? Exchange in art and art theory in the 18th century , Chur 2004, pp. 249–266.
  • Dieter Ulrich: Trippel, Alexander. In: Sikart 1998.
  • Hans Wahl , Anton Kippenberg : Goethe and his world, Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1932 p. 105, 126.
  • Hermann Arthur Lier:  Trippel, Alexander . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 38, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1894, pp. 621-625.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Museum: Ernst Haeckel House of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Braunschweig 1990, p. 104 f.
personal data
SURNAME Trippel, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1744
PLACE OF BIRTH Schaffhausen
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 1793
Place of death Rome