Carl Heinrich Gerhardt

Carl Heinrich Gerhardt (born December 7, 1846 in Bonn ; † 1907 there ) was a German entrepreneur and the father-in-law of the painter August Macke .

biography

The Bonn pharmacist Ludwig Clamor Marquart founded a utensil shop in 1846 called “Marquart's warehouse for chemical utensils”, which Carl Gerhardt joined as an apprentice.

In 1872 Carl Gerhardt bought the business from his teacher. He initially ran it as “Marquart's warehouse of chemical utensils” with the addition “C. Gerhardt ”continues. The up-and-coming entrepreneur built his house with adjoining company buildings in several construction phases on Bornheimer Strasse in Bonn . As early as 1884, just one year after the sensational presentation of his new analytical method for determining nitrogen in organic substances by Johan Kjeldahl , Carl Gerhardt brought the first digestion and distillation devices to the market in Kjeldahl.

Carl Gerhardt died in 1907. After his early death, his company was renamed “C. Gerhardt Factory & Warehouse of Chemical Apparatus ”and, associated with this, the establishment of worldwide connections by his son Walter Gerhardt. In 1909 Carl Gerhardt's daughter Elisabeth married the Bonn painter August Macke. Macke and his wife lived in a house on the company premises for several years. Many important paintings and numerous drawings show motifs around the former company premises, such as the painting “Our garden with blooming borders” from 1912, on which the front part of the company building in Bonn is shown.

In 1960 the company “C. Gerhardt GmbH & Co. KG “on his nephew Dr. Wolfgang Macke , who was the sole owner until 1974. He died in 1975 and passed the responsibility on to his son Til Macke . In 2002 he acquired a commercial property in Königswinter - Oberdollendorf , to which he moved in mid-2003. The company C. Gerhardt is now run in the fifth generation by his sons Jan Macke and Tom Macke.

Web links

• Gerhardt history (formerly: "Marquart's warehouse of chemical utensils")