Balthasar Anton Dunker

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Balthasar Anton Dunker, drawing by Sigmund Freudenberger (around 1775)

Balthasar Anton Dunker , also: Duncker (born January 15, 1746 in Saal (Western Pomerania) , † April 2, 1807 in Bern ) was a German painter , etcher and writer who mainly worked in Bern. In addition to landscape painting, he dealt with the representation of the political events of his time. His works, some of which are satirical, represent an early climax in political caricature in Switzerland .

Life

Balthasar Anton Dunker was the eldest son of the West Pomeranian pastor Albert Andreas Duncker (1706–1781) in Saal near Stralsund and his second wife, Sophie Dorothea von Olthof († 1761). The artistic talent that showed up early on was promoted by Adolf Friedrich von Olthoff , who was a Swedish councilor in Stralsund . As an uncle on his mother's side, he took on the boy's upbringing and had him instructed by the landscape painter Jakob Philipp Hackert . At Olthoff's request, Hackert took his pupil on a trip to Paris in 1765 , where, after Olthoff and Dunker's parents had lost their fortune in 1768, he initially took on all of the upbringing and maintenance.

In addition to instruction from the painters Joseph Marie Vien and Noël Hallé , Dunker was particularly influenced in Paris by the engraver Johann Georg Wille . With Jacques Aliamet (1726–1788) he learned the basics of etching. The first commissions, mediated by the art dealer Jacques-Gabriel Huquier, enabled him to earn his own living. His etchings from 1770 to 1772 for the Duke of Choiseul's gallery are considered to be his first major achievement.

Wilhelm Tell fights the revolution, pen and ink drawing in watercolors (1798)

In June 1772 Dunker went to Basel to study with Christian von Mechel . After a misunderstanding between himself and his teacher, he made his way back to Paris. However, he only got as far as Bern, where there was a lively art scene at the time. In 1777 he received civil rights in the town of Rolle in the canton of Vaud , making him a resident of the Bernese country. There he settled down as a painter and etcher and mainly produced pictures of Swiss and Italian landscapes, but also genre pictures , portraits, historical pictures, caricatures and bookplates . He worked closely with Johann Ludwig Aberli and Sigmund Freudenberger . He also emerged as a book illustrator , for example for Louis-Sébastien Mercier's “Tableau de Paris” and his “ The year 2440: a dream of all dreams ”.

In the 1790s the order situation deteriorated because of the French Revolution . Between 1798 and 1800 he published several writings in which he was disappointed about the outcome of the revolution, embittered and satirically depicting the downfall of Old Bern . These represent an early climax in political caricature in Switzerland.

He spent the last years of his life in poverty.

family

Six out of fifteen children reached adulthood from their marriage to Johanna Franziska Fahrni from Eriz in 1775 . His son Philipp Heinrich Dunker (1781–1836) worked as a landscape painter and engraver in Nuremberg .

Works

Illustrations
  • New typographic society (ed.): Les Nouvelles de Marguerite de Valois (L'Heptaméron des nouvelles) . Bern 1780–1781
  • Louis-Sébastien Mercier : Tableau de Paris . Yverdon 1787
Illustrated writings
  • Writings from , Bern 1782
  • Writings B: A: D :, Bern 1785
  • An interlude with some vignettes from BAD 1785 , 1785
  • Register of coat of arms of the city of Bern , 1795
  • The moral-political courier , 1798
  • The upside-down world in symbols
  • The MDCCC year in pictures and verse , 1800
  • Last years of Friedrich von Steiger's life , 1800

literature

Web links

Commons : Balthasar Anton Dunker  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Dunker, Balthasar Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and etcher
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1746
PLACE OF BIRTH Hall (Western Pomerania)
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1807
Place of death Bern