Carl Mayer (publisher)

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Carl Ferdinand Mayer (also: Karl Mayer or Carl Meyer ; * May 21, 1798 in Nuremberg ; † January 2, 1868 ibid) was a German artist , copper and steel engraver , graphic artist , art establishment owner and publisher .

Life

youth

Carl Mayer was born as the son of a middle-class family based in Nuremberg and attended grammar school there . Equipped with a talent for visual arts , Mayer attended the Nuremberg drawing school under the direction of Zwinger and at the same time entered the studio of the painter and copper engraver Friedrich Fleischman , whose most successful student he was. Mayer was also a student of Chr. Haller von Hallerstein a . a.

After his studies in Nuremberg, Mayer went to Paris , where he learned from his friend and advisor Desnoyers and "soon gained an honorable reputation in the local artistic world through his achievements". After staying for several years, Mayer went back to his hometown.

Henry the Fourth , Part Two ;
Steel engraving by Mayer after PC Geissler , around 1850

Mayer quickly became known beyond Nuremberg's borders for the “delicate, elegant manner of his grave stylus , both in portraits and in genre matters ”, and soon he could hardly do the many jobs for illustrations himself. Known with the most important book publishers of his time, he therefore opened a "studio for copperplate engraving and printing" in 1828, in which he employed young artists, but often revised and retouched their works in order to give the work his own "luster" (gloss) to provide. Soon the premises had to be expanded considerably for this. There were two main reasons for this:

  1. On the one witnessed the book industry since the 1830s, especially Leipzig and Stuttgart in a new phase German by publishing and foreign classics , popular histories and so on, the emerging educated middle illustrations was "inexpensive" presented.
  2. On the other hand, even before the "announcement of the first photographic process", the still young invention of steel engraving offered the possibility of pictorial prints in unlimited numbers, which was previously not possible with the copper engraving that was customary up to that point.

Examples:

Photo by Carl Koch and steel engraving for mass publication Photo by Carl Koch and steel engraving for mass publication
Photo by Carl Koch and steel engraving for mass publication

Carl Mayer's Art Institute

Finally, Carl Mayer acquired the classic publishing house of the Frauenholzschen Kunsthandlung in Nuremberg and published his own works of art with his Carl Mayer's Kunst-Anstalt , which he offered directly to the retail book trade. Not least because of this first large art establishment, Nuremberg was "until the 1850s and 1860s [...] in the field of copper engraving and steel engraving."

For an additional branch of the company, Mayer set up an atelier for the production of oil color prints, which was managed by his younger friend and painter C. Hösch.

After the death of Carl Mayer, his sons Wilhelm and finally Eugen continued to run the Carl Mayer Art Institute .

The postcard producers Zerreiß und Co. and the Ernst Nister company emerged from the company .

In 1884 the printing and publishing house of Carl Mayer's Kunstanstalt received a steam engine at the address Nebengasse 24 from the Maschinenbau AG Nürnberg .

Works

  • 1836: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe with the genius of poetry, copper engraving (number 135) from the König Ludwigs album , signed and dated in the plate , after a pencil drawing by Wilhelm von Kaulbach , publishing house of the Königlich Bayerischen private art institute von Piloty & Loehle in Munich, “with statutory Protection against replication ”, Tondo in a decorative frame, dimensions: 34.2 cm × 34.2 cm
  • Friedrich Schiller , steel engraving 13.8 cm × 10.5 cm after a drawing by C. Schmidt (possibly the lithographer and copperplate engraver in Offenbach am Main, Christoph Schmidt - after Thieme-Becker verifiably also in Frankfurt am Main in 1820/30)
  • Engravings in: Ludwig Amandus Bauer , Albert Schott : Panorama of the German classics. Gallery of the most interesting scenes from the masterpieces of German poetry and prose, based on drawings by German artists, executed in steel by Carl Mayer's Kunstanstalt in Nuremberg ... Selection of the most beautiful and attractive from the masterpieces of German poetry and prose, from Lessing to the very latest . Stuttgart, K. Göpel, [Volume 1, around 1845].
  • Mayer engraved several pictures based on drawings by Peter Carl Geissler for works by Friedrich Schiller .
  • Engravings in: Carl Wilhelm Zimmermann : The Teutsche Kaisersaal. Patriotic paintings. With 30 engravings based on drawings by PC Geissler on German history from the Carolingians to the Luxemburgers, for example from Charlemagne, the imperial coronation of Heinrich I, Emperor Friedrich II in Jerusalem, Hussite battle near Thaus, battle near Leipzig etc., LF Rieger , Stuttgart 1841 ( Digitale-sammlungen.de ).

literature

Web links

Commons : Carl Mayer (engraver)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Mayer, Carl In: Rudolf Schmidt: German booksellers. German book printer. Volume 4, Berlin / Eberswalde 1907, pp. 663–664 ( zeno.org ; source given there: Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel. 1868).
  2. ↑ a b c Wilhelm Schwemmer: The viewing postcard with Nuremberg motifs. In: Nuremberg in old views. European Library, Zaltbommel 1976, ISBN 90-288-2700-5 .
  3. ↑ a b c Jutta Assel, Georg Jäger: Portrait and memorial graphics on Goethe and Schiller ( goethezeitportal.de ).
  4. ^ Hannjörg Lorsbach: Foreword by the editor. In: Ludwig Hoerner : The photographic industry in Germany 1839-1914. Düsseldorf: GFW-Verlag, 1989, ISBN 3-87258-000-0 , p. 7.
  5. ^ Albert Gieseler: Carl Mayers Kunstanstalt und Verlag , source : German Reichs address book for industry, trade, commerce and agriculture from 1900, p. 455
personal data
SURNAME Mayer, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mayer, Karl Ferdinand; Meyer, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German copper and steel engraver, painter, graphic artist and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH January 2, 1868
Place of death Nuremberg