August Achilles
August Friedrich Johann Achilles (born March 16, 1798 in Rostock , † February 9, 1861 in Altona ) was a German draftsman and lithographer .
Life
August Friedrich Johann Achilles was a son of the musketeer August Johann Achilles, who was born in Saxony, and his wife Anna Marie Friederike Koch from Stralsund .
August Achilles apprenticed to a carpenter and then went on a journey as a journeyman, where he learned to make instruments and trained in drawing in Berlin. In 1821 he served his military service in Güstrow and returned to Rostock a year later. Here he married Johanna Fintzenhagen, the daughter of a Hautboist who had fallen in Russia .
In 1830 Achilles was called to Schwerin and appointed court draftsman. He made u. a. Portraits of General von Kamptz and the Bernadelli family of dancers as well as views of Schwerin buildings. Attempts to gain a foothold in other places such as Hamburg, Hanover, Boizenburg or Wittenburg failed and so the Achilles family can be found again in Schwerin in 1849, where August u. a. lithographed the entry of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II with his first wife Auguste. In the following years he also made several portraits of princes, including the picture of Friedrich Franz III as a child .
When the artist developed an eye disease, the family quickly got into financial difficulties. After selling their own press and an unsuccessful attempt to found a drawing school in Rostock, the family went to Altona and August worked at the Ch. Fuchs publishing house in Hamburg.
Achilles is considered to be the first to introduce lithography in Mecklenburg.
literature
- Anna Marie von Langermann: August Achilles. An old time artist. Yearbooks of the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology , Volume 91 (1927) pp. 137–152 Digitized
- Grete Grewolls: Who was who in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. The dictionary of persons . Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2011, ISBN 978-3-356-01301-6 , p. 20 .
- Maike Bruhns : Achilles, August . in: The new rump. Lexicon of fine artists in Hamburg, Altona and the surrounding area . Wachholtz, Neumünster 2005, ISBN 978-3-529-02792-5 . P. 7.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Achilles, August |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Achilles, August Friedrich Johann |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German draftsman and lithographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 16, 1798 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rostock |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 9, 1861 |
| Place of death | Altona |