Alexander of Minutoli

Alexander von Minutoli (born December 26, 1806 in Berlin , † December 17, 1887 in Friedersdorf am Queis ) was a German lawyer, economist, artist and art collector. In 1844 he founded the first arts and crafts museum.

Life

Apse mosaic, 545; donated

Minutoli studied law , economics and archeology. The architectural draftsman wrote his examination paper on monuments of medieval art in the Brandenburg Marches . In 1839 he became the head of trade in Liegnitz . In 1843 he acquired the apse mosaic from 545 AD from the misappropriated church of Santa Michele in Ravenna for the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Today the mosaic is one of the main attractions in the Museum of Byzantine Art in Berlin.

This king had given Alexander von Minutoli the general order to help the no longer competitive Silesian industry. From April 1844, Minutoli opened his Liegnitz apartment at Goldberger Straße 33 on Sundays at regular times to view the “exhibition of a collection of models for craftsmen and tradespeople” - a technical collection in the first arts and crafts museum. It presented exemplary objects from earlier times when art and craft still formed a unit. Many objects came from the family property. After traveling to Sicily to acquire other role models, the apartment became too small. In 1845 Friedrich Wilhelm IV allowed the collections of glass, ceramics, metal, sculptures, furniture and textiles to be set up in ten rooms of the Liegnitz Castle. As early as 1855 it was a collection for 90 trades. In order to spread the models, Minutoli became a photographer. He daguerrotyped for 13 years. From 1855 he had paper prints made, which were sold in booklets of six sheets each. In 1858, from June to the beginning of December, a large exhibition of 28,000 objects from the Minutoli collection took place in 18 rooms of the Liegnitz Castle, to which interested parties came from all over Europe, from Spain to Russia. Minutoli's concept was the model for the South Kensington Museum in London, and later also for the corresponding museum in Vienna.

After Minutoli inherited the Woldeckschen Pecuniarfideicomiss, he acquired the castle in Friedersdorf am Queis in 1862 . On July 1, 1866, King Wilhelm I of Prussia allowed Alexander and his nephew Arthur to call themselves Baron von Minutoli-Woldeck. It was not until 1869 that Alexander was able to sell large parts of his collection to the Prussian state. Together with the objects from the Kunstkammer, which had already been acquired from the royal box between 1858 and 1862, 7,200 objects from the Minutoli collection formed the core of what would later become the Berlin Museum of Applied Arts (inventory numbers: M ...). Even after the auction, the number of other objects was so large that Minutoli built the Woldeck Tower above Friedersdorf Castle and had the Neidburg built. Some of the paintings that came from the father's extensive collection of paintings are now in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie .

His father was the archaeologist , traveler to Egypt and educator of Prince Carl von Prussia , Lieutenant General Johann Heinrich Menu von Minutoli (1772–1846), the older brother was the Berlin police chief Julius von Minutoli (1804–1860), who was also consul general for Spain and Portugal as well as was Prime Minister in Persia .

His daughter Anna first married her cousin Arthur von Minutoli-Woldeck, the son of Uncle Julius. Seven years after Alexander's death on December 17, 1887, the widowed Anna von Minutoli married the Africa explorer Joachim Graf von Pfeil and Klein Ellguth , who took over the estate in Lower Silesia .

Works

• Monuments of medieval art in the Brandenburg Marches . 1836.
• The cathedral of Drontheim and the medieval art of the Scandinavian Normans ; Alexander of Minutoli. Reimer Berlin, 1853
• Models for craftsmen and manufacturers, 1855.
• Minutoli Museum . 9 volumes. 1855 to 1868 ( third edition 1873 ).

literature

• Harry Nehls: The antiquarian Nicolaus Johann Heinrich Benjamin Freiherr Menu von Minutoli (1772–1846). In: State Museums in Berlin. Research and Reports. Volume 31, Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1991, pp. 159–168, here pp. 165–168 with transcriptions of original letters from Alexander v. Minutoli on the purchase of the Ravenna mosaic.
• Harry Nehls: Doctorate in absentia - The three "academic" sons of Freiherr Heinrich von Minutoli: Adolph, Julius and Alexander von Minutoli . In: The Bear of Berlin, yearbook of the Association for the History of Berlin 67, 2018, pp. 29–56.
• A. Sammter: The Minutoli'sche Institute of the collection of models for the promotion of trades and arts. Leipzig 1866.
• JH Matthias: Applied model and pattern book. Leipzig 1867.
• Justus Brinkmann: Catalog of the collections of sample works of industry and art of the Minutoli Institute in Liegnitz. Part 1, 1872; Part II, 1873.
• Auction catalog at Heberle, Cologne, October 25, 1875.
• Rudolph Lepke : Catalog of the Minutoli Gallery from Friedersdorf Castle in Silesia (paintings by old masters) Public auction: Thursday, April 4, 1889 a. the following day. Berlin 1889.
• Peter Keller: Alexander von Minutoli (1806–1886) - The model collection of the trade department head. In: Happiness, Passion and Responsibility - The Museum of Decorative Arts and its collectors. Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-88609-395-6 , pp. 16-19.
• Dorothea Minkels : drawn in 1848. The Berlin police chief Julius von Minutoli. Norderstedt 2003, ISBN 3-8334-0096-X .
• Dorothea Minkels: In the germinal time of democracy Berlin police president - Julius von Minutoli for his 200th birthday. Exhibition catalog. Norderstedt / Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-8334-1568-1 .
• Dorothea Minkels: Alexander von Minutoli, founder of the 1st Museum of Applied Arts in the world (1844). With a contribution by Zygmunt Wielowiejski to early photography. Norderstedt 2018, ISBN 978-3-7460-6982-1 .
• Bernd Vogelsang: Official Purchasing - The Collections of Baron Alexander von Minutoli in Liegnitz. Dortmund 1986, ISBN 3-923293-15-1 .
• Magdalena Palica: Art collections of the Lower Silesian nobility in Prussian times. In: Jan Harasimowicz , Matthias Weber (Hrsg.): Adel in Schlesien . Volume 1: Rule - Culture - Self-Presentation. (= Writings of the Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe. Volume 36). Oldenbourg, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-486-58877-4 , pp. 515-530.
• Margret Dorothea Minkels: Travel on behalf of Prussian kings drawn by Julius von Minutoli. Norderstedt 2013, ISBN 978-3-7322-7919-7 , pp. 10, 13f., 17,20, 38, 40-43, 45, 47, 49, 52f., 56, 62, 70, 79, 161, 265, 330, 348, 396, 400, 403, 407. (with illustrations).
• Material on Friedersdorf am Queis in the Duncker Collection
• Joachim S. Karig, Dorothea Minkels: Heinrich Menu von Minutoli and his outstanding family , Norderstedt 2019, ISBN 978 3 7481 7568 1 .