Anton Khünel

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Anton Khünel (* 1673 in Brno ; † January 10, 1754 , ibid), was a German alchemist , shadow player and inventor of the shadow opera.

life and work

Anton Khünel was born in Brno in Moravia in 1673 . Through alchemical experiments in gold making and the distillation of the philosopher's stone , he brought through the considerable fortune of his parents until 1727. Impoverished, he looked for a job. While wrestling hands over his situation at night, he is said to have discovered the shadow play. In the second quarter of the 18th century, Khünel developed the hand shadow game to a level of perfection that had never been seen before him:

“Qui suo tempore parem non habuit, et ante eum nullus visus est” ( Latin house journal with Kühnel's death date ).

When performing his shadow operas, he projected the shadow of his hands over mirrors onto a canvas screen with candlelight. He preferred to form biblical scenes and rhapsodized stanzas that he composed himself. In 1728 he performed at the imperial court in Vienna. 1730 an appearance at the New Year's Fair in Leipzig is reported. In Dresden in 1730 Khünel performed a three-act shadow opera at the court of Chursächsischen. According to the Saxon cabinet of curiosities of 1730, the third act addressed an unhappy marriage. A rhapsody of Khünel about his art has been handed down. In it he mentions his year of birth 1673 and prides himself on his art of depicting animals and biblical scenes. Further performances at German courts and in Vienna in front of Prinz Eugen are reported. In 1732 Friedrich Wilhelm I invited Khünel to the court table after a demonstration in Machau. Khünel was copied many times in the following decades, but was soon forgotten. Khünel is said to have written a no longer verifiable manual on hand shadow play.

As a curiosity, Khünel appears occasionally in the entertainment magazines of the 19th century. In literary terms, his person was woven into the fantastic collection of short stories Lemuria (1917) by Karl Hans Strobl .

literature

  • Anton Khünel, the shadow player with the hand. (From Hanzely's literary estate) in: Moravian Wanderer (Brünn, Traßler, 4 °.) Born in 1811.
  • A wonderful shadow play , in: Gustav Friedrich Klemm: Chronicle of the city of Dresden and its citizens from the oldest to our times, In der Expedition der Chronik, 1833, p. 126.
  • Anton Khünel. the preacher of transience , in: Der Pilger: a Sunday paper for teaching the religious mind, Volume 4, Benzinger, 1845, p. 389.
  • Gerhard Robert Walter Ritter von Coeckelberghe-Dützele: Anton Kühnel, in: Curiosities and Memorabilia Lexicon of Vienna (Vienna 1846, gr. 8 °.) Vol. II, p. 99.
  • Notes of the historical-statistical section of the kk Moravian-Silesian Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Nature and Regional Studies (Brno, 4 °.) 1860, No. 5. ( digitized version )
  • Georg Jacob: The shadow stage as German folk amusement and the literary German shadow play , in: The present, volume 72, issues 27–52, 1907 p. 266.
  • Ulrich Rosseaux: Free spaces: entertainment, pleasure and relaxation in Dresden 1694-1830 , Böhlau, 2007, p. 310.
  • Ernst-Frieder Kratochwil: German puppet and mask play until 1900, Milow Schibri-Verlag, Berlin, 2012, p. 127. ISBN 978-3-86863-089-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A wonderful shadow play, in: Gustav Friedrich Klemm: Chronicle of the city of Dresden and its citizens from the oldest to our times, In the Expedition of the Chronicle, 1833, p. 126.
personal data
SURNAME Khünel, Anton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kühnel, Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German shadow player and inventor of the shadow opera
DATE OF BIRTH 1673
PLACE OF BIRTH Brno
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1754
Place of death Brno