The Düsseldorf artists' bird shooting in the Grafenberg Forest
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| The Düsseldorf artists' bird shooting in the Grafenberg Forest |
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| Friedrich Boser , Carl Friedrich Lessing , 1842–1844 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 81 × 104.7 cm |
| New-York Historical Society |
The bird shoot of the Düsseldorf artists at the Grafenberg , English Bird shoot of the Düsseldorf artists at the Grafenberg , is the title of a group picture by the painters Friedrich Boser and Carl Friedrich Lessing . It was created from 1842 to 1844 in Dusseldorf , showing painters of the Düsseldorf school in bird shooting in the forest of Grafenberg .
Description and meaning
In the group portrait that Boser had prepared in 1842 with an oil sketch, he portrayed 28 personalities from the Düsseldorf School of Painting while shooting birds. The location of the events depicted is likely to have been in the “Wolfsschlucht” and thus near the “Fahnenburg”, the forester's house at Haus Roland , which was then owned by the writer and art collector Anton Fahne . A pen drawing, also from 1842, provides a personal scheme according to which Boser had composed the group picture:
The people grouped around a wooden table on the left are (from left to right) in the upper row Hermann Kretzschmer , Christian Albrecht von Benzon , Johann Baptist Sonderland , Hermann Plüddemann , Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Rudolf Jordan (the latter in a rear view with on the Shotgun on the ground), in the middle row Eduard Frederich , Christian Köhler , Wilhelm von Schadow , Heinrich Mücke and Theodor Hildebrandt and below the “painter dwarf” Jakob Lehnen , the only one of the portrayed to fix the viewer.
The center of the picture shows how Adolph Schroedter presents the winner of the bird shooting, Carl Friedrich Lessing, with a Roman as a winner's cup. Emil Ebers , standing between the two, puts his hand on Lessing's shoulder in a friendly manner. To the right of Lessing, Eduard Steinbrück and Karl Ferdinand Sohn observe the ceremony from close up, the latter casually shouldering his shotgun. Below, leaning on a picnic basket, Henry Ritter flanks the group of people in the center of the picture.
Other painters are grouped on the right. In the background Boser placed a rear view of the German-American Emanuel Leutze - shown under crossed rifle barrels . It is known from tradition that Leutze refused to be portrayed in the group picture on the remarkable grounds that he was a US citizen. To the right of him are the following portraits: Louis Ammy Blanc , Rudolf Wiegmann , Hermann Stilke , Rudolf von Normann (sitting on a table), Eduard Wilhelm Pose , Gustav Jacob Canton , Friedrich Boser and Julius Schrader . The right edge of the picture is framed as a seated pipe smoker Wilhelm Camphausen , owner of the greyhound resting on the floor in front of him .
The representation of the landscape - a slope of the Grafenberg Forest wooded with deciduous trees, a bird's perch and a tiled shelter - left Boser to his friend, the landscape painter Lessing. This was emphasized by Boser as the central figure in the center of the picture not only by the depiction of the trophy presentation, but also by the lighting, which makes his light gray frock coat particularly shine. The emphasis on Lessing as a central figure in the Düsseldorf art scene finds a parallel in Bose's group picture, also completed in 1844, The Picture Show of the Düsseldorf Artists in the Gallery Hall . With it, Boser painterly reproduced a contemporary eulogy by the Swiss art writer Wilhelm Füssli on Lessing. In his description of the Düsseldorf School of Painting in 1843, the latter had particularly praised Lessing as “a man whom public opinion has placed at the forefront of Düsseldorf artists for years. (...) Now he is one of the most respected German painters, yes, he may have a larger audience than Cornelius . It is true that he cannot be compared with the latter, but in a certain sense we also consider him to be a reformer of German art. "
Provenance
The picture was signed by Boser in 1844. The German-American art, wine and spirits dealer Johann Gottfried Böker , former consul of the United States for the Rhine Province and Westphalia, acquired it shortly after completion. At Franz Hanfstaengl in Munich, Böker, as editor, had a lithograph made of it until the beginning of 1846. He exhibited the original as one of the main works in his collection from 1849 onwards at the Düsseldorf Gallery , an art exhibition of contemporary Düsseldorf painting in New York City and Boston . In 1862 Böker's collection was auctioned. The picture was bought by John Wolfe, New York. It was bought at another auction in 1863 by the art collector Robert L. Stuart , who kept it until his death. Subsequently, his widow donated the picture to the Lenox Library, later the New York Public Library . Today the picture belongs to the collection of the New York Historical Society .
literature
- Bettina Baumgärtel : The Düsseldorf artists' bird shooting in the Grafenberg Forest, 1844 . In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Hrsg.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918 . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , Volume 2, p. 42 f. (Cat. No. 21).
Web links
- Bird shoot of the Düsseldorf artists at the Grafenberg. Data sheet in the portal digitalcollections.nyhistory.org ( New-York Historical Society )
Individual evidence
- ^ Friedrich Boser : The Düsseldorf artists' shooting of birds , 1842, color sketch, oil on cardboard, 24.7 × 34.2 cm, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
- ^ "Bird shooting by the Düsseldorf artists in the Wolfsschlucht" - cf. Entry Boser, Karl Friedr. Adolf . In: Friedrich Faber: Conversations Lexicon for Fine Art . Renger'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1846, Volume 2, p. 237 ( Google Books )
- ^ Friedrich Boser: Scheme of the painting, 1842, pen and ink drawing, 26.9 × 42 cm, Stadtmuseum Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf
- ^ Daily National Intelligence , issue of March 26, 1852. Quoted from: Kathleen Luhrs: Düsseldorf Artists . In: Raymond L. Stehle: The Düsseldorf Gallery of New York . In: New-York Historical Society Quarterly , 58 (October 1974), pp. 315-317
- ^ Wilhelm Füssli : The most important cities on the Middle and Lower Rhine in the German area, with reference to old and new works of architecture, sculpture and painting . Zurich and Winterthur 1843, p. 588 f.
- ^ Munich papers for art, beautiful literature and entertainment . Issue No. 1 of January 3, 1846, p. 37 ( Google Books )