Dominicus van der Smissen

Self-portrait 1739/40

Dominicus van der Smissen , also Van der Schmissen (born April 28, 1704 in Altona ; † January 6, 1760 ibid) was a German painter.

Life

Van der Smissen came from a merchant family originally from Brabant . The Mennonite family had settled as religious refugees at the end of the 16th century in the cities of Schleswig and Holstein , which were then part of Denmark and in which the Danish king guaranteed freedom of belief , first in Friedrichstadt , then in Glückstadt and finally in Altona. As the founder of one of the largest trading houses in Altona, his father Hinrich van der Smissen had achieved great reputation and prosperity.

He became a student of Balthasar Denner . Little else is known about his life. He traveled a lot and worked mainly as a portrait painter. Around 1738 he worked in Altona and in 1739/40 he was court painter in Braunschweig . In the 1740s he worked in Dresden , later in Amsterdam and in the 1750s in London . When Dominicus van der Smissen fell ill with gout , he returned to Altona, hoping to recover, but where the disease worsened and he remained paralyzed until his death.

As a Freemason he was a member of several lodges; Among other things, he was accepted as a member of the Leipzig Lodge Minerva to the three palms in 1747 .

Van der Smissen married his teacher's sister, Catharina Denner (* November 6, 1693, † April 4, 1778) on July 29, 1730, whose father, Jakob Denner, was a Mennonite preacher. The couple had a son Jakob van der Smissen (approx. 1735–1813), who also became a painter and later worked as a professor of drawing in Altona.

Works

Alfred Lichtwark wrote in 1898 that a generation earlier a whole series of his pictures could still be seen in the houses of Hamburg families, including landscapes, still lifes and portraits : A generation ago there were many works by the artist in Hamburg's possession, landscapes that today are entirely seem to be impossible to find, still lifes that have become very rare, and portraits that are also no longer common. Today, museums almost only contain portraits of him. He differs from his teacher Denner according to Lichtwark's assessment that the colors are a degree paler and duller and that van der Smissen is looking for a cool gray mood in his pictures .

Barthold Hinrich Brockes

The Hamburger Kunsthalle has the most extensive collection of his paintings, including:

• Self-portrait (in the 1921 catalog No. 432)
• Vincent Rumpff (165)
• Portrait of a Hamburg mayor and his wife (166, 167)
• Portrait of a Captain (433)
• Still life (434)
• Hinrich I. van der Smissen

other museums:

• Friedrich von Hagedorn (half-length portrait to the right), unmarked. Oil on canvas. 53.4 x 42.2 cm. Around 1745
• Barthold Hinrich Brockes , Unmarked. Oil on canvas. 56 × 43 cm. Around 1745
• Meta Klopstock , Unmarked. Oil on canvas. 75.2 x 61.1 cm. Around 1755
• Charlotte Goverts, Unmarked. Oil on canvas. 75.2 x 61.6 cm. Around 1750
• Hermann Goverts, unmarked. Oil on canvas. 76.0 × 62.0 cm. Around 1750
• Duke Karl I of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , Unmarked. Oil on canvas. 81.2 x 66.8 cm. 1739.
• Duchess Elisabeth Sophie Marie zu Braunschweig-Lüneburg (attributed to), unmarked - Oil on canvas. 84.7 × 67.3 cm, around 1740/1750.

In the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig:

• Self-portrait
• Portrait of a Lady

literature

• Alfred Lichtwark: The portrait in Hamburg. Printed as a manuscript. Volume I. Hamburg, 1898, pp. 144-146 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Kunsthalle zu Hamburg: Catalog of the old masters. 1921, p. 155
• The new rump. Lexicon of visual artists from Hamburg, Altona and the surrounding area. Revised new edition of the lexicon by Ernst Rump (1912). Wachholtz, Neumünster 2005, ISBN 3-529-02792-8 .
• Smissen, Dominicus van der . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 31 : Siemering – Stephens . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1937, p. 165 .
• Hamburg Artist Lexicon. Volume 1: The visual artists. Edited by a committee of the Association for Hamburg History , Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1854, p. 234, ( uni-hamburg.de ).

Web links

Commons : Dominicus van der Smissen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Cornelius Krahn: Dominicus van der Smissen . In: Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dominicus van Smissen. In: The new rump. Lexicon of visual artists from Hamburg, Altona and the surrounding area. 2005, p. 418.
2. ↑ Proof of Freemasonry (PDF), accessed on March 12, 2017.
3. ↑ Ute Haysessen: Denner, Jacob. in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982. Volume 6, ISBN 3-529-02646-8 , p. 76.
4. ↑ Georg Kaspar Nagler: Smissen, Jakob van der . In: New general artist lexicon or news of the life and works of painters, sculptors, ... Volume 16 : Schoute – Sole . EA Fleischmann, Munich 1846, p. 497 ( books.google.de ).
5. ^ ^{A b} Alfred Lichtwark: The portrait in Hamburg. Volume 1, p. 145.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Giesela Jaacks: Faces and personalities . Museum of Hamburg History, Hamburg 1992, p. 183-184 .
7. ^ Portrait of Barthold Heinrich Brockes. Kunsthalle Kiel, accessed on July 28, 2016 . 
8. ^ Portrait of Duke Karl I of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, accessed on January 8, 2019 . 
9. ↑ ^{a b} Michael Wenzel: The paintings of the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel. Inventory catalog . Wolfenbüttel 2012, ISBN 978-3-447-06773-7 .
10. ^ Portrait of Duchess Elisabeth Sophie Marie of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, accessed on January 8, 2019 .