Caroline Friederike Friedrich

Caroline Friederike Friedrich (born March 4, 1749 in Friedrichstadt near Dresden ; † January 20, 1815 in Dresden) was a German flower still life painter and academy teacher . She belonged to a family of artists that had worked for over four generations .

Life

Flower still life, 1782

White thimble, 1807

Vine leaves, before 1815

She was born in 1749 in the then still independent municipality of Friedrichstadt at the gates of Dresden. The mother Johanna Dorothea Günther gave birth to six children, one of whom died early. Caroline's father was the etcher David Friedrich Friedrich. The Saxon court painter Johann Alexander Thiele discovered a special talent for painting in the Großschönau artisan and promoted it by partially training him in Dresden himself and providing him with further teachers. After acquiring the technique, Fr. Friedrich followed Thiele's advice and specialized in painting artistically high quality oil wallpapers for the nobility and the wealthy bourgeoisie. With the branch in Friedrichstadt he founded his own wallpaper manufacturer with three employees. Due to the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) and the suffering of the population that followed it, his business basis deteriorated and he went into debt. Caroline was instructed in drawing by him and she learned oil and watercolor painting from her brother, the painter Johann David Alexander Friedrich, who was five years older than her . Since her father's death in 1766, Caroline, who remained unmarried, supported her mother and siblings thanks to her skills.

After studying nature on her own, she specialized in still lifes, the quality of which also got around in academic circles. The art-loving Saxon diplomat Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn feared that talent would be wasted in the face of the starving Friedrich family, which could not least serve the city of Dresden and its reputation. So he sat down energetically for Caroline one, so that the Electoral Saxon Academy of Art in Dresden her a 1770 scholarship for hopeful art talents with an annual bonus of 25 thaler awarded, which was increased in 1777 to 47 in 1783 and again to 78 dollars. In 1774 she was made an honorary member of the academy, and since 1783 she was the only woman to teach there as a tutor for still life. Among her best students were - along with three other women - Caroline Theresia Richter (1777-1865) and her nephews, the flower and miniature painters Carl Jacob Benjamin Friedrich (1787-1840) and Johann Heinrich August Friedrich (1789-1843). The latter later gained artistic recognition in neighboring countries to the east for his repertoire, which was expanded to include depictions of birds. Caroline also taught drawing to the young Gottlob Michael Wentzel after he had attended the academy's drawing class. In doing so, she imparted elementary knowledge to him and gave him important suggestions for flower painting, the implementation of which should bring him the name "Blumen-Wentzel" in art history. For a while, the artist lived in a co-op with her friend, a painter and later director of the art academy, Johann Eleazar Zeissig , known as Schenau. From 1776 she regularly took part in the academy exhibitions, to which she only sent still lifes. In her organic arrangements in oil and also in the gouache technique, she preferred to combine flowers, fruits, insects and food, the mastery of which encouraged contemporary art critics to compare them with the Dutch still life painter Jan van Huysum . In contrast to the more factual depictions of plants by her brother Jacob, Caroline's tempera brush drawings on construction paper are more magnificent and colorful, which prompted Duke Franz Friedrich Anton of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld to buy thirty of her sheets. Her sponsor, Princess Henriette Amalie von Anhalt-Dessau , the youngest daughter of the old man from Dessau , also bought several pieces from her. These were incorporated into the picture gallery of the Amalienstift Dessau around 1900. Many of her works have been lost to this day, including her painting Allegory of World Peace with the embroidered motto “Pax universalis 1800”, which symbolized the year of peace 1800 and received a great deal of public attention - her probably only work outside of the still life genre. Paintings by her hand later came into the collections of King Friedrich August II of Saxony . At the beginning of the 19th century, some of her pictures were included in the catalogs of the Dresden gallery. Today the Dresden Kupferstichkabinett keeps a considerable number of drawings, watercolors and gouaches.

Caroline Friederike Friedrich died on January 20, 1815 in the house of the painter Zeiss, who had died in 1806, on Kreuzgasse in Dresden as the most famous member of her family of artists who had been active for over four generations.

Web links

Commons : Caroline Friederike Friedrich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Bernd Mälzer: The Großschönau-Dresden painter family Friedrich. For the 250th birthday of the flower painter Caroline Friederike Friedrich . In: Christian-Weise-Bibliothek Zittau (Hrsg.): Library journal of the Christian-Weise library . Source research, historical, bibliographical and biographical information from Zittau and Upper Lusatia. Issue 8. Zittau September 14, 1999, p. 20-29 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Carola Muysers: Caroline Friederike Friedrich. March 4th, 1749 Friedrichsstadt until January 20th, 1815 Dresden . In: Bärbel Kovalevski (Ed.): Between ideal and reality. Artists of Goethe's time between 1750 and 1850 . Verlag Gerd Hatje, Ostfildern-Ruit 1999, ISBN 3-7757-0806-5 , p. 257 .
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} A [nke] Fröhlich: Friedrich . In: Günter Meißner (Ed.): Saur General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples . tape 45 : Freyer - Fryderyk. KG Saur Verlag, Munich / Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-598-22785-X , p. 146 .
4. ↑ ^{a b} Anke Fröhlich: Landscape painting in Saxony in the second half of the 18th century. Landscape painter, draftsman and etcher in Dresden, Leipzig, Meißen and Görlitz from 1720 to 1800 . VDG Verlag and database for the humanities, Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-89739-261-5 , III. Part, 1. Appendix, 1.1. List of artists with biographical information, p. 286 .
5. ↑ ^{a b} Caroline Friederike Friedrich, 1749 Friedrichstadt / Dresden - 1815 Dresden. In: hampel-auctions.com. September 19, 2013. Retrieved October 28, 2017 . 
6. ^ Anke Fröhlich: Landscape painting in Saxony in the second half of the 18th century. Landscape painter, draftsman and etcher in Dresden, Leipzig, Meißen and Görlitz from 1720 to 1800 . VDG Verlag and database for the humanities, Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-89739-261-5 , Part I: Structural requirements for landscape painting in Saxony, Chapter 1.7 .: Landscape as book illustration, p. 33 .

Web links

• Anke Fröhlich: Caroline Friederike Friedrich . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .