Andrea Alovisii

Knight's Hall in Iburg Castle

Andrea Alovisii (* 1620 in Rome , † 1687 probably in Amsterdam , also Vitorio Andrea Alovisii , Andrea Alovisii-Galanini , Andrea Alosis Galanini and Andreas Aloisius ) was an Italian painter of the Baroque .

He was court painter to the Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück , Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg (1593–1661). Andrea Alovisii created portraits and altarpieces. His ceiling painting in perspective architecture in the knight's hall of Iburg Castle in Bad Iburg (Lower Saxony) is outstanding in terms of art history . He had his workshop in Munster . Like the painters of his time, Andrea Alovisii seldom signed his works. Art history, however, attributes many of his works to him through style comparison or documents his authorship through archival documents .

Life

Andrea Alovisii was born in Rome. The painter Baldassare Alovisii-Galanini (1577–1638) could be his father, but this is not documented. Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg, who had studied in Rome from 1608 to 1614, met Andrea Alovisii during his trip to Italy in 1641 and employed him as a valet and court painter for 60 Reichstaler per year. Andrea Alovisii created a series of portraits of the prince-bishop in the almost 20 years of his activity as court painter.

In 1650 Andrea married Alovisii. On this occasion, Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg paid him an additional amount. When the Prince-Bishop came to Münster in 1644 on behalf of Elector Ferdinand of Cologne to represent the interests of the Catholic League during the negotiations on the Peace of Westphalia , Andrea Alovisii was one of the 14 personal servants in the 160-person court. He settled in the city and did not accompany Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg when he left Münster in 1650 and went on trips to Paderborn, Cologne, Nuremberg and Regensburg.

In 1655 Andrea Alovisii, whose employment relationship was presumably interrupted, asked the Prince-Bishop in a letter for help and reinstatement after his wife, who was already ill, broke her leg in a fall and was in mortal danger. Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg commissioned him to work on the portrait gallery in the knight's hall of Iburg Castle. From 1656 to 1658 Andrea Alovisii created the ceiling paintings of the knight's hall, which were unique in their pseudo-architecture north of the Alps after an older ceiling painting of this type in the Munich residence was destroyed in the Second World War .

Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg spent his last years alternately in Regensburg and Osnabrück, 15 kilometers from Bad Iburg . He died in December 1661. This ended Andrea Alovisii's activity as court painter. He returned to Münster, where he married Gertrud Volkmans for the second time, who brought a son into the marriage, and initially lived on the Prinzipalmarkt in a prime location in the city. 1676 calls him the Aegidii- Leischaft than princely painter ; In 1685 he is referred to in the personal appraisal of the Ludgeri-Leischaft as only a small house-owning craft society . During these years he received commissions from the City Council of Münster, for whom he was Prince-Bishop Ferdinand von Fürstenberg in 1679 and Maximilian Heinrich von Bayern in 1683 , who had been elected Bishop of Münster in the same year . Both paintings have not survived. Matthias von Korff-Schmising also acted as a patron of the painter, who, as can be deduced from archival documents, had him make portraits of family members, as well as two pictures of the Virgin Mary and one of the Apostle Paul in 1670 and other commissioned works in 1683.

Presumably Andrea Alovisii created the martyrdom of St. Matthew , which St. Matthew's Church in Melle received in 1681 as a donation from Theodor Heinrich von Nehem. This was canon in Osnabrück and Minden and provost to St. Johann in Osnabrück. Andrea Alovisii's signature bears the Last Supper in St. Pankratius Church in Vellern . The picture of the Emmaus in the Vellern rectory is attributed to him.

Andrea Alovisii is said to have written his will in Amsterdam on May 11, 1687. Whether he died there is questionable.

literature

• Helmut Lahrkamp: On the work of the Italian painter Andrea Alovisii († 1687) In: Osnabrücker Mitteilungen, 108 (2003), pp. 69–96 ISSN  0474-8158
• The great hall of the Iburg. To the prince-bishop's residence of Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg. Contributions to the scientific conference from October 7th to 9th, 2004 at Iburg Castle. On behalf of the Landschaftsverband Osnabrücker Land e. V. ed. by Susanne Tauss (Kulturregion Osnabrück, Vol. 26), Göttingen 2007. ISBN 978-3-89971-279-7
• Hermann Schröter: Documentary on the life story of the Italian painter Andrea Alovisii. In: Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 65 (1952), pp. 139–145

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Helmut Lahrkamp (Ed.): Münster's population around 1685 in sources and research on the history of the city of Münster , New Series 6, Münster 1972, page 65 and page 163
2. ↑ Andrea Alovisii . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 2, Seemann, Leipzig 1986, ISBN 3-363-00115-0 , p. 619.