Carl Gottlieb Guttenberg

Carl Gottlieb Guttenberg

Carl Gottlieb Guttenberg (* August 21, 1743 ; † 1792 ) was a German engraver .

Life

Not much is known about Carl Gottlieb Guttenberg's life. He was a student of Johann Georg Willes and was supposed to teach next to Johann Gotthard von Müller at the copper engraving institute that Duke Carl Eugen set up in Stuttgart . But the negotiations dragged on; Guttenberg made demands to be able to work at his own discretion with a salary of 1000 livres per year and not to have to comply with any demands of the duke. Although these wishes were met, Guttenberg demanded further revisions of the contract, which ultimately did not come about at all.

Guttenberg, who signed “CGG” or “CG Guttenb.”, Left a caricature with the title The Tea Tax Tempest .

The Tea Tax Tempest

The Tea Tax Tempest or Old Time with His Magic Lantern

The winged figure of the father of time is depicted here. This keeps a magic lantern on a globe in balance and projects an image onto a screen or a curtain with a steaming teapot in the center. This symbolizes the American Revolution . He cooks on a fire that a Gallic rooster keeps going by flapping. British soldiers are on one side of this middle scene and American soldiers on the other. Father Time has four viewers, the personified parts of the world America , Africa , Europe and Asia . He explains to you what can be seen in his picture.

Further processing with speech bubble

A further processing of this picture from 1783, which does not come from Guttenberg, is equipped with a speech bubble in front of the mouth of the father Zeit. He explains the scene with the tea kettle as follows: “There you see the little Hot Spit Fire Tea pot that has done all the Mischief - There you see the Old British Lion basking before the American Bon Fire whilst the French Cock is blowing up a storm about his Ears to Destroy him and his young Welpes - There you See Miss America grasping at the Cap of Liberty - There you see The British Forces be yok'd and be cramp'd flying before the Congress Men - There you see the thirteen Stripes and Rattle-Snake exalted - There you see the Stamp'd Paper help to make the Pot Boil -There you See & c & c & c. "

The Oracle by John Dixon

Guttenberg did not invent the scenery himself, but adapted a work by John Dixon from 1774, which was entitled The Oracle . Instead of the tea kettle, Dixon showed a rural idyll that was to give expression to the hopes for a peaceful Great Britain. The modification Guttenberg added to Dixon's work was possibly based on a statement by Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, in connection with the introduction of the tea tax , which is considered to be one of the reasons for the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War .

The death of General Wolfe

Another work by Guttenberg that also dealt with the political situation overseas was The Death of General Wolfe in the Battle of Québec . This engraving goes back to a painting by Benjamin West . The battle in which Wolfe was killed was fought on September 13, 1759 as part of the Seven Years' War . The British and the Americans faced the French and the Canadians; the opposing general was the Marquis of Montcalm. General Wolfe sustained several injuries but refused medical treatment. Shortly before his death, he ordered some of his troops to cut off the retreat of the fleeing French on the St Charles River. West and Guttenberg seem to have depicted this scene.

literature

• Joseph Eduard Wessely:  Guttenberg, Karl Gottlieb . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, p. 226 f.

Web links

Commons : Carl Gottlieb Guttenberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Works by and about Carl Gottlieb Guttenberg  in the German Digital Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Christian Rümelin: Johann Gotthard Müller and the Stuttgart Copper Engraving Institute . Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-7995-7862-5 , p. 88.
2. ↑ Joseph Heller: Monogram Lexicon, containing the known, dubious and unknown characters, as well as the abbreviations of the names of the draftsmen, painters, form cutters, engravers, lithographers, etc. with short information about the same . Bamberg 1831, p. 75 ( digitized in the Google book search). The year of death 1792 can also be found here.
3. ↑ Princeton
4. ↑ Britishbattles.com ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2008 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.