Anton Möller

Alms board (1607) in Gdańsk's Marienkirche

Model of the World and the Gdańsk Society National Museum (Poznan)

Anton Möller (* around 1563 in Koenigsberg ; † January 1611 in Danzig ) was a German painter in Danzig, who is best known for allegorical, historical and biblical pictures and portraits. He is also known as "The Painter of Danzig" (because of the depiction of Danzig's cityscape in the background of many of his paintings) or as "The Prussian Pieter Brueghel" (because of his "peasant" motifs). Anton Möller is the first East Prussian painter of importance.

Life

Anton Möller was born as the eldest of five children of the court surgeon and court barber of Duke Albrechts of Prussia , Anton Möller (? - 1575), and his wife, Ursula Harmann (Hermens). On December 29, 1577, the meanwhile widowed Ursula Harmann married the surgeon and barber Johann Weger. This second marriage also had five children. She died in 1594 and was buried on December 22, 1594.

At the age of 15 (on April 22, 1578), Möller began his seven-year apprenticeship in Prague at the court of Rudolf II von Habsburg with a painter who worked for the emperor. During this time he frequently copied works by Albrecht Dürer , including all 36 sheets of the “Little Passion” (woodcuts). The oil study Maria with the baby Jesus and little Johannes (based on the original by Johann von Achen ) comes from his apprenticeship .

Based on various archive materials and stylistic features in his later works, it is assumed that Möller traveled to Italy (especially Venice ) between 1585 and 1587 and also to Holland (especially Antwerp and Amsterdam ) on his return journey . On this trip he got to know the works of Giorgione , the Tintoretto family and Palma Vecchio . From 1587 Danzig was his permanent place of life and work. He set up his studio in Danzig's Neugarten.

After returning from his study trip, Möller married a Gdańsk citizen named Barbara. In 1592 the son Anton was born, who was baptized in the St. Marien Church in Gdansk and was given the first name of his father and grandfather. In 1596 the daughter Ursula was born. A third child followed in 1599 and was baptized on June 20. His sister Barbara died when she was still a girl, who at the time had modeled for her brother for a "resurrected woman" from his Königsberg Last Judgment altar in the Steindammer Church .

Möller died at the age of only 48 while the winged altar of St. Catherine's Church was being completed in Gdansk. His grave is in the Trinity Church in Gdansk.

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The erection of the temple , 1602, formerly in the City Hall , now in the National Museum (Gdansk)

Möller mainly created ceiling, wall and panel paintings for town halls, churches and museums as well as portraits for private clients, as well as copperplate engravings , woodcuts , pen and ink drawings. His Gdańsk likeness was given as a gift from the Gdańsk people to the friendly trading city of Venice. During his main creative period he created a. a. in Gdansk the mural and panel painting “Last Judgment” for Artus Court , the “Alms Panel” for St. Mary's Church and a winged altar as well as an epitaph (Last Judgment) for Jacob Schmidt for the Katharinenkirche in Danzig. For Königsberg he created several epitaphs in the cathedral and the winged altar in the Steindammer Church, as well as several portraits of well-known personalities as well as religious and historical allegories.

Individual works (in selection) and their whereabouts

• Triptych , 1585–1587, for the high altar of the Steindammer Church : Last Judgment (middle picture), Resurrection (left wing) and Falling into Hell (right wing), predella: “Last Supper of Jesus”, back: “Crucifixion” (middle picture), flanked of the 6 Works of Mercy (gray on gray). During the Second World War (1943) it was relocated to the church in Schönbruch, then picked up in 1944 with an unknown destination and has since been considered missing.
• High altar of Königsberg Cathedral (triptych) with 4 paintings ("Fall of Man", "Baptism of St. John", "Last Supper" and "Crucifixion"); at the time they were considered to be the most beautiful pictures in this church.
• High altar (triptych, 1601) with the paintings “Crucifixion”, “Last Supper” and “Last Judgment” (today, 2016, in the National Museum in Gdansk);
• 4 round pictures (1. “Announcement of the birth of Jesus”, 2. “Birth of Jesus”, 3. “Ecco Homo - see, man -” (Christ with a crown of thorns), 4. “Christ appears to Magdalena as a gardener”, at the time in the Königsberg Castle Church above the outer doors and above those of the large central room inside the "Royal Lodge".)
• Court society with Christburg Castle in the background (1587), drawing, whereabouts unknown.
• The Defamation of Apelles (1588), oil on canvas, Artus Court, destroyed in World War II.
• Four of the former five "Justice Images" (1588) have been preserved in the Gdansk National Museum:
  • Allegory of Justice .
  • Allegory of the Unjust Judge .
  • Allegory of Homage .
  • Allegory of Legislation .
  • ( Allegory of the Last Judgment , the fifth, was badly damaged by a grenade during the French siege in 1807).
• Allegory IN MORS ULTIMA LINEA RERUM ( Death stands at the end of all things ) (1589), Museum Danzig.
• Twelve Apostles (1590), series of pictures, large canvas painting in portrait format for the parish church in Pienonskowo (Pieniążkowo) near Mewe (West Prussia). During a renovation of this church, all of the Apostle paintings were sold by Pastor Lessnau to the painter Janowski in Neuchâtel. In 1883 four pictures of this series were given to the Canon Friedrich Hundsdorf in Pelplin , they are now in the Diocesan Museum Pelplin. The rest of them went up for auction, five of which were purchased from the Gdańsk City Museum, where they are still to this day. The whereabouts of the remaining three pictures is unknown.
• Omnium statuum foeminei sexus ornatus, & usitati habitus Gedanenses, ob oculos positi & dilvugati from Antonio Moellero ibidem pictore ... - The Danzig Frawen and Jungfrawen lousy delicacy and costume / seen in the mid-century / by Antonium Möllern / Painters there in Abconterfeyung . 1601 printed to Dantzigk / by Jacobo Rhodo. Jacob Rhode, Danzig 1601.
• Portrait of a young Gdansk patrician (1598), preserved, Gdansk National Museum.
• Last Judgment , (1600), epitaph of the lawyer Christoph Heilsberg, Königsberg Cathedral; Ceiling painting.
• Triptych: Model of the World and Gdańsk Society , Allegory of Wealth , around 1600, and Allegory of Pride (1600), preserved, National Museum (Poznan) .
• From formerly four semicircular pictures (1601/1602) are preserved in the Historical Museum in Gdansk (another only as a fragment):
  • The Zinsgroschen (painted on five interconnected oak planks, 5.20 m long).
  • The temptation of Jesus .
  • The construction of the temple .
• Last Judgment : Möller dealt with the subject of the Last Judgment a total of twelve times: on the altarpiece of the Steindammer Church in Königsberg (1585–87); on a panel the five images of justice (1588); in a preliminary study for the Artus Court in Danzig (1595); on a picture of the epitaph (1595) for the lay judge Jacob Schmidt in the Katharinenkirche in Danzig; on a plaque in Artushof 1603 (destroyed by fire in 1945, reconstruction by K. Izdebski 2000); on the altarpiece (triptych) of the Katharinenkirche in Danzig (1610–11); on a lost picture in the Königsberg city court; in the picture (1604) of the epitaph of Georg von Pudewels, Königsberg Cathedral; on the picture of the epitaph of Dr. Christop Heilsberg (1600), Königsberg Cathedral; in the picture (1597) of the epitaph of councilor Wilhelm Plato and his wife Katharina, Königsberg Cathedral; on the painting of the high altar of the Königsberg Cathedral from 1591; on the semicircular picture of the alms board (1607) above the allegorical, classical seven works of mercy in the Marienkirche in Gdansk;
• Bartolomäus Schachmann (Mayor of Gdansk), portrait (1605), gouache on paper, now in the Polish Academy of Sciences , Gdansk Department.
• Alms board (1607), preserved, Marienkirche in Danzig.
• Allegory of the struggle of the Christian Knight of Virtue with deadly sins , Epitaph Wernsdorff, Königsberg Cathedral.
• Young woman (1608), knee , Koenigsberg.
• Third Commandment , one of ten paintings from the series “The 10 Commandments” (1602–1603), two of which have been lost and eight have been preserved and exhibited in the former Protestant parish church in Praust . This series of images was originally created for the Artushof Bank (“Judicial Arbor”) in Gdansk. It was removed during a later renovation of the interior. The mayor of Gdańsk Christian Schroeder is said to have donated this cycle of paintings to the church in Praust in 1681.
• Sea goddess , Friedrich Bassner collection, Sopot.
• Female portrait , Count Eulenburg's private collection.
• Christ on the cross , middle picture of the triptych of the high altar of the Katharinenkirche in Danzig; today in the National Museum in Gdansk.

° Portrait of Danzig, the painting was lost as a gift from Danzig to the friendly city of Venice.

literature

• Michael Antoni (edit.): Dehio-Handbuch der Kunstdenkmäler West- and Ostpreussen. The former provinces of West and East Prussia (Deutschordensland Prussen) with Bütower and Lauenburger Land. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich and Berlin 1993. ISBN 3-422-03025-5 .
• Georg Cuny: Möller (Moller, Miller), Anton, d. Ä. In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 25 : Moehring – Olivié . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1931, p. 4-5 .
• Lionel von Donop :  Möller, Anton . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 131 f.
• Hermann Ehrenberg: Anton Möller, the painter from Danzig. A contribution to the knowledge of the influence of Italian and Dutch art on German painting of the late Renaissance. In: monthly journals for art history. Vol. 11, 1918, pp. 181-190.
• Walter Gyssling: Anton Möller and his school. A contribution to the history of Low German Renaissance painting. Heitz, Strasbourg 1917 (= studies on German art history. Issue 197).
• August Hagen : About the artists Anton Möller and Joachim Behring and their work. In: New Prussian Provincial Papers. Born 1847, issue 4.
• Werner Kussin: Anton Möller's alms panel from 1607. In: Late Gothic panel painting in Danzig. Diss. Uni Erlangen 1935, 163 pages, 2 pictures, 1 map.
• Jan Harasimowicz : The Danzig painter Anton Möller as a citizen of his city and an ardent moralist in the spirit of the Lutheran Reformation orthodoxy. In: Frank Muller (ed.): Art, religion, société dans l'espace germanique au XVIe siècle. Actes du colloque Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg, May 21-22, 1993. Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, Strasbourg 1997, ISBN 2-86820-663-8 , pp. 77-104.
• Teresa Labuda: Antoni Möller, malarz gdański przełomu XVI i XVII wieku. Dissertation. Poznań 1991 (translation of the Polish title: Anton Möller, a Gdańsk painter from the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries ).
• Teresa Labuda: Anton Möller's alms board from the Marienkirche in Danzig, iconographic problems. In: Magazine for the history and archeology of Warmia. Volume 44, 1988.
• Choung-Hi Lee-Kuhn:  Möller, Anton the Elder. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 637 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Hans Bernhard Meyer: New results from Anton Möller research. In: Old Prussian research. Vol. 14, 1937, pp. 49-64.
• Sergiusz Michalski: The Lutheran-Catholic-Reformed rivalry in the field of the fine arts in the area of ​​Danzig around 1600. In: Joachim Bahlke, Arno Strohmeyer (Hrsg.): Confessionalization in East Central Europe. Effect of religious change in the 16th and 17th centuries on the state, society and culture. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-515-07583-6 , pp. 267-286, on Anton Möller: pp. 273-274.
• Jadwiga Puciata-Pawłowska: Program ikonograficzny zaginionego stropu Antoniego Móllera w ratuszu toruńskim. In: Zapiski Historyczne. Poświęcone historii Pomorza i krajów bałtyckich. ISSN  0044-1791 . Vol. 24 (1958/1959), No. 4, pp. 67–86 (translation of the Polish title: The iconographic program of the lost ceiling paintings by Anton Möller in the town hall of Thorn ).
• Anton Ulbrich : Art history of East Prussia from the time of the order to the present. Gräfe & Unzer, Königsberg 1932.

Web links

Commons : Anton Möller  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Anton Muttray: Anton Möllers, the Danzig painter, end of life and last work. In: Communications of the West Prussian History Association. Vol. 10, 1911, pp. 52-58.
2. ^ Walter Gyssling: Anton Möller and his school. A contribution to the history of Low German Renaissance painting. Heitz, Strasbourg 1917.
3. ↑ Hans Bernhard Meyer: The Danzig cityscape with Anton Möller. In: Communications of the West Prussian History Association. Vol. 34, 1935, pp. 33-36.
4. ^ In addition, Anton Bertling: Anton Moellers Danziger Frauentrachtenbuch from 1601, reissued in faithful facsimile reproductions based on the original woodcuts. Richard Bertling, Danzig 1886.