Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener
Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener (born July 16, 1782 in Berlin ; † January 18, 1861 there ) was a German banker and patron . His collection of paintings forms the basis of the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
Live and act
Wagener's father Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener († 1820) and his brother-in-law Otto Heinrich Anhalt (1740-1820) founded the trading and shipping company Anhalt & Wagener in 1775 . It was located in the Brüderstraße leading to Schlossplatz in Berlin-Mitte at the Petrikirche . In 1814 Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener became a partner and in 1820, following the death of the two founders, sole owner of the company, whose banking business he expanded. In 1820 he became a co-founder of the Berlin merchants' association and was their oldest until 1827 . In 1831 Wagener was appointed consul of Sweden and Norway .
In 1815 he had acquired his first painting, a work by Karl Friedrich Schinkel , the Gothic church on a rock by the sea , made two years earlier . Over the years he amassed an extensive collection of contemporary art and also promoted artists through targeted commissions. In his will , drawn up in 1859 , he left the entire collection of now 262 paintings to the Prussian state:
“For a number of years I have been buying paintings by living artists and in this way have acquired a collection of paintings that will be of interest to art history, as it shows the progress of modern art from year to year with individual pictures by important painters. The printed catalog shows 256 pictures, of which number 10 was excluded because I returned the picture listed under this number. On the other hand, since the catalog was printed, the collection has increased by five pictures, which have already been added to the catalog I have written, and will perhaps receive further growth through new purchases if I have the opportunity to do so. It is my wish that this collection of paintings, as it will be found when I die, be kept undivided, and that it be set up here in Berlin in a suitable location and always made available to all artists and art lovers, so that they can contact the to delight individual paintings or to copy them or to do other studies. Trusting in the judgment of many connoisseurs about the not insignificant artistic value of the collection, which I bought at a cost of well over 100,000 thalers. I dare to offer the same Sr. Royal Highness to the Prince-Regent and, insofar as the reign should come to an end on my death, to Sr. Majesty as a legacy to the then reigning King and to accept it graciously to ask submissively in the interests of art. There is no other condition or restriction attached to this request of mine than those I have already allowed myself to express in my above wish for the undivided preservation, installation and use of the collection. In particular, I leave it to the very highest discretion whether the collection should be strengthened and continued in the sense envisaged at the beginning, in order to grow into a national gallery, which also portrays modern painting in its further development, and the purpose that suits me when the collection was established, fulfilled more completely than is possible during the short life of an individual. "
After Wagener's death, Wilhelm I accepted the donation by decree of February 27, 1861. He also contributed 20 paintings from the Royal Collection. On the king's birthday, March 22nd, 1861, the Wagenersche and National Gallery was opened in the former building of the Academy of Arts on Unter den Linden . In 1876, after the completion of the own building on Museum Island , the collection moved there. At the same time, Max Jordan, as director of the Nationalgalerie , disconnected the connection and the original numbering of the Wagener collection, which had been preserved until then.
In addition to the collection of paintings, Wagener had also created an extensive collection of autographs and an archive of artists that contained the letters of the artists with whom he had been in contact. The autograph collection, the catalog of which contained 1289 numbers, was auctioned in February 1878. The letters, which were filed in 4 volumes and spanned the period from 1834 to 1859, were placed in the National Gallery's archives.
Wagener was buried in the St. Petri cemetery in Berlin . However, his grave was leveled at the end of the 20th century.
literature
Catalogs
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Gustav Friedrich Waagen : Directory of the painting collection of the royal Swedish and Norwegian consul J. H. W. Wagener, who died in Berlin on January 18, which has passed into the possession of the king by last will. Decker, Berlin 1861.
- 1866 edition, books.google.com
- 1871 edition books.google.com
- Catalog of the collection of autographs and historical documents of JHW Wagener Bankier and K. Schwed, who died in 1861. u. Norway Consul in Berlin. Auctioned on February 26th in the art auction house. (B. Lopke) in Berlin. Berlin 1877.
Studies
- Udo Kittelmann, Birgit Verwiebe, Angelika Wesenberg (eds.): The collection of the banker Wagener. The foundation of the National Gallery . EA Seemann Verlag, Leipzig 2011, ISBN 978-3-86502-274-5
- Eberhard Roters: The National Gallery and its donors. Patronage and state funding in dialogue and contradiction. In: Günter Braun (Ed.): Patronage in Berlin. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin etc. 1993, ISBN 978-3-11-013788-0 , pp. 73-98.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quoted from catalog 1871 (lit.), p. IVf
- ^ New gazette for bibliography and library studies. 1878, p. 84.
- ^ Joachim Grossmann: Artists, court and bourgeoisie: Life and work of painters in Prussia 1786–1850 . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 978-3-05-002412-7 , p. 142f with note 670.
- ↑ List of some grave sites in the St.-Petri-Luisenstadt-Kirchhof on stiftung-historische-friedhoefe.de, accessed on April 24, 2012
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wagener, Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German entrepreneur, banker and patron |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 16, 1782 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 18, 1861 |
| Place of death | Berlin |