Amalie Bensinger

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Amalie Bensinger: Portrait of an Italian with a tambourine , 1860
Amalie Bensinger: Portrait of a Breastfeeding Roman Woman, 1852

Amalie Bensinger (born March 28, 1809 in Bruchsal , † November 16, 1889 in Reichenau ) was a German painter .

Live and act

Amalie Bensinger came from the Mannheim long-established, originally Jewish merchant family Bensinger. Her father was of the Catholic faith and worked as an attorney at court, the mother belonged to the Protestant denomination in which she also raised her daughter. Amalie Bensinger grew up in Mannheim. From 1835 she studied with professors at the Düsseldorf Art Academy ( Düsseldorfer Malerschule ), where she took private lessons with Julius Hübner and, from 1839, with Karl Ferdinand Sohn and Wilhelm von Schadow . After further studies in Mannheim and Karlsruhe, she went to Italy in 1851, stayed in Florence and from 1852 in Albano Laziale , Olevano Romano and Rome . There she met Joseph Victor von Scheffel , made friends with him and inspired the poet to the scene of his Ekkehart , where the Ekkehard has to carry the Duchess Hadwig of Swabia over the monastery threshold. For this he immortalized Amalie Bensinger as a figure in his work Der Trompeter von Säckingen . In Rome, both belonged to the closest circle of friends around Eduard von Engerth (1818–1897) and his Italian wife.

Amalie Bensinger also came into contact with the Nazarenes who lived here and was enthusiastic about their religiously motivated painting. Peter von Cornelius (1783–1867) and Friedrich Overbeck (1789–1869) in particular exerted an artistic influence on her, which led her to increasingly turn to sacred painting. The Nazarenes initially lived as an artist brotherhood in the Roman monastery of Sant'Isidoro a Capo le Case and Amalie Bensinger dreamed of founding a similarly religiously motivated artist community for women.

From 1857 Bensinger stayed in Munich , where she became a member of the Kunstverein in 1859 . In 1860 she converted from the Protestant to the Catholic faith in the church of the Lichtenthal monastery near Baden-Baden . According to a self-testimony, she had dealt with biblical topics and religious books so extensively by commissioning a high altar painting depicting the " Transfiguration of Christ " for the parish church of St. Peter and Paul in Lahr / Black Forest that she finally came to the Catholic profession.

Amalie Bensinger finally came into contact with the church painters Peter Lenz (1832–1928: later Father Desiderius Lenz ) and Jakob Wüger (1829–1892; later Father Gabriel Wüger ), who developed their own specific painting style out of the Nazarene style Name of Beuron art became known. Both she worked in 1864 the statutes to "Art Monastery" from whose seat was initially planned in Rome, but the result of the acquaintance of Amalie Bensinger with Princess Katharina von Hohenzollern (born von Hohenlohe-Waldenburg) from 1868 Beuron was .

The painter withdrew to the island of Reichenau and continued to pursue the idea of ​​a monastic community for women artists. For this she acquired the so-called Schlössle in Mittelzell, which she intended to join as a female branch of the Abbey of Beuron, but which did not happen.

Amalie Bensinger died on the island of Reichenau and was buried in the Niederzell cemetery, where a tomb with a representation of Pirminius was erected for her in the Beuron art style.

Amalie Bensinger's early works are largely portrait and genre paintings in the realistic style of the Düsseldorf School of Painting. At the latest from her conversion, she devoted herself almost exclusively to sacred painting and is counted among the late Nazarene.

literature

Web links

Commons : Amalie Bensinger  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
  • Leon Wilnitsky: Ancient Art. (Website on Amalie Bensinger with full text of the AKL article)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Artists of the Düsseldorf School of Painting (selection, status: November 2016): Bensinger, Amalie, 1835-1839 PU (private lessons) Julius Hübner d. Ä., After 1839 PU Carl Ferdinand son, Wilhelm von Schadow. (PDF) smkp.de; accessed on May 15, 2017
  2. ^ Friedrich Noack : The Germanness in Rome since the end of the Middle Ages. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1927, Volume 2, p. 83
  3. ^ Ruediger Engerth: Eduard Ritter von Engerth (1818-1897). Painter, teacher, gallery director and art writer. Contributions to life and work (= research and contributions to Viennese city history. Volume 26), Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-7005-4644-0 , p. 27 ( Google Books ).
  4. ^ Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe: 750 years of the Cistercian Abbey of Lichtenthal: the fascination of a monastery. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1995, p. 363.
  5. ^ David August Rosenthal: Convertite pictures from the nineteenth century. 1st volume: Germany. 3rd part. 2nd Edition. Schaffhausen 1872, p. 306. This picture has been preserved as a high altar sheet in the Lahr church to this day.
  6. ^ Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe: 750 years of the Cistercian Abbey of Lichtenthal: the fascination of a monastery. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1995, p. 363 ( Google Books ).
personal data
SURNAME Bensinger, Amalie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Bruchsal
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1889
Place of death Reichenau (District of Constance)