Christian Wermuth

Christian Wermuth

Christian Wermuth (born December 16, 1661 in Altenburg , † December 3, 1739 in Gotha ) was a German medalist .

Life

Wermuth was the eldest son of the court gürtler Christian Wermuth (* August 22, 1636; † March 25, 1680) and his wife Maria Rebecca (born Reinheckel, * 1646; † August 3, 1676). He had eight siblings, four brothers and four sisters. In 1669 his father settled in Dresden as a gürtler at the electoral court. After attending the Kreuzschule, his son learned the profession of engraver as a student of the famous die cutter Ernst Caspar Dürr and then possibly worked for the engraver Pieler. Later he found employment as a coin cutter in Sondershausen .

In 1686 he became an engraver at the Gotha mint and in 1688 he became a royal Saxon-Gotha court medalist and coin engraver. In the same year, on September 25, he married Elisabeth Juliane Voigtländer (born January 28, 1670), the daughter of the Lüneburg bailiff in Bettmar , Governor Julius Eberhard Voigtländer. This marriage resulted in five sons and four daughters. In 1694 he began to design a series of medallions depicting each emperor in one of his most important acts. This series of 214 very beautiful medals met with general interest and in 1699 earned him the imperial privilege of keeping a minting mill in his house and minting coins, although the series was not finished until 1715.

In 1703 King Friedrich I tried to summon Wermuth to replace his famous, late court medalist Raimund Faltz in Berlin , but Wermuth refused and was nevertheless given the title as a token of royal grace. From now on he called himself "Imperially privileged, also Royal Prussian and Princely Saxon-Gotha Medalist." It is reported that "no potentate or great gentleman lived in his time whom he was not diligent in serving with his art."

Wermuth founded a stamp cutting school in Gotha, from which a large number of important artists later emerged: Johann Christian Koch from Großzerbst ; Johann Christian Weber from Wittenberg , later Arnstadt medalist and Reichsthaler drafter; Johann Friedrich Hilken (also Hilcken) from Nordhausen , later ducal Braunschweig medalist; Rudolf Philipp Wahl from Clausthal , later a Saxon-Eisenach medalist; Jeremias Balthasar Wilhelmi from Gotha , later a medalist in Ilmenau , and Carl Johann Heinrich Voigtländer from Bettmar , Wermuth's brother-in-law, who later became a coat of arms cutter in Erfurt - to name just a few of them.

In addition to the school and his workshop, Wermuth founded a publishing house for numismatic writings, which also published “Tentzel's Saxon Medal Cabinet”. After the death of Wilhelm Ernst Tentzels , he continued his work.

The Wermuth workshop flourished. The number of coins and medals he produced was estimated at well over 1,300 pieces. Several extensive catalogs existed about his works. His most beautiful pieces date from the era between 1700 and 1707, but it was also said that they could have come from Johann Christian Koch . Wermuth was also represented at the Leipzig trade fairs with its products. He invested his wealth in a valuable coin collection, in the enlargement of his sizeable library and in his stately home, which was on Mönchelsstrasse in Gotha.

Wermuth was quite a versatile educated person for his time, but had the peculiarity of depicting satirical facts on a little over a hundred coins that he wanted to denounce. In particular, the Saxon King August the Strong is said to have resented some of these coins very much. As a result, he was involved in lengthy trials several times, which, however, did not bother him. He was proud to be able to tell the truth through such coins and at the end of his life often changed his name to Warmuth in allusion to this. He died on December 3, 1739 at the age of 78 in Gotha.

See also

• Hustaler , medal commemorating the death of Jan Hus , cast around 1717, by the Gotha coin engraver Christian Wermut

literature

• Johann Hieronymus Lochner: Preface. In: Collection of strange medals…. Volume 6, 1742 ( uni-heidelberg.de ).
• Max Berbig:  Wermuth, Christian . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 55, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1910, pp. 43-45.
• Vermouth, Christian. In: Georg Kaspar Nagler : New general artist lexicon. Volume 21: Vouillemont – Witsen. Fleischmann, Munich 1851, p. 299 ( uni-weimar.de ).
• Vermouth, Christian . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 35 : Libra-Wilhelmson . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1942, p. 399-400 .
• Lothar Frede: The criminal proceedings against the Gotha medalist Christian Wermuth 1694. Example of an inquisition process from the baroque period. In: Journal of the Association for Thuringian History. Volume 45, 1943, pp. 109-148.
• Christian Wermuth: Specificatio of their medals or showpieces, so chronologically in gold, silver, gilded and pure copper also English pewter made / to get by Christian Wermuthen. Central antiquariat of the GDR, Leipzig 1976.
• Cordula Wohlfahrt: Christian Wermuth, a German baroque medalist. British Art Medal Society, London 1992, ISBN 0-9514271-1-3 .
• Medal plans by Cardinal Damian Hugo von Schönborn from 1716: designs by Albrecht Krieger, Johann Friedrich Roth and Christian Wermuth / Hermann Maué. In: Anzeiger des Germanisches Nationalmuseum. 1989, pp. 243-258.
• Sabine Koloch: Award and media culture of the Enlightenment. The coronation medals for the Thuringian poet Sidonia Hedwig Zigarunemann - contemporary sources, people involved, cultural-political signaling function. ( goethezeitportal.de PDF, August 8, 2015).

Web links

• Literature by and about Christian Wermuth in the catalog of the German National Library
• Medal for the introduction of street lighting in Leipzig, 1702
• Mention of wormwood in the development of the medallion system
• Wermuth and the Gotha Coin Collection ( Memento from May 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
• biography

Individual evidence

1. ^ Johann Hieronymus Lochner: Preface. In: Collection of strange medals…. Volume 6, 1742 ( uni-heidelberg.de ).
2. ↑ L. Forrer: Pierer . In: Biographical Dictionary of Medallists . tape 4 : MB-Q . Spink & Son Ltd, London 1909, p. 532 (English, Textarchiv - Internet Archive - Christian Wermuth seems to have been one of his pupils ): “Christian Wermuth appears to have been one of his pupils”
3. ^ L. Forrer: Wermuth, Christian . In: Biographical Dictionary of Medallists . tape 6 : T-Z . Spink & Son Ltd, London 1916, p. 432 ff . (English, Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).