Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen
Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen (born September 6, 1762 in Göttingen , † January 27, 1840 in Göttingen) was a draftsman and engraver in the university town of Göttingen. He illustrated numerous scientific publications for the professors of the university. He became known nationwide primarily for his copperplate engravings based on graphics by the Englishman William Hogarth (1694–1767). He gave his two sons Franz and Johannes Riepenhausen the basics for their own careers as a painter and engraver.
life and work
Adolescent years
Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen was born the son of the watchmaker Johann Christian Riepenhausen and his wife Marie Elisabeth. As a university mechanic and manufacturer of clocks, telescopes , etc., his father was a respected citizen of the city. There is only one general reference to Ernst Ludwig's artistic training that he has dedicated himself to the art of drawing since his earliest youth . Some small-format copper engravings by his hand - landscapes and portraits - are dated to the years 1780–82. In 1781, Riepenhausen enrolled at the University of Göttingen for a course of study that aimed not at a specific profession but at promoting general education. Artistically, he was based on Daniel Chodowiecki and his popular etchings. A volume of poetry published in Göttingen in 1782 included two copper engravings each by the famous Chodowiecki and the young Riepenhausen as illustrations. “The contemporaries soon recognized Riepenhausen as a very useful substitute for the always overburdened Chodowiecki. [...] The publishers order book illustrations and especially calendar coppers from him ”. And in a text from 1788 it said: "Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen has already excelled in drawings and copperplate engravings in local and other pocket calendars and other works in the Chodowieckian manner."
working area
Works for calendars and almanacs were among Riepenhausen's most important sources of income. These period print products were, according to their subtitles, “for use and pleasure” , “for the elegant world” , “for the educated classes” , “for daughters and women of noble minds” or “for the promotion of general and domestic happiness” . The writer, mathematician and physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg , as editor of the renowned Göttingen pocket calendar, commissioned illustration to both Chodowiecki and Riepenhausen, about whose engravings based on larger models he judged that “despite the miniaturization of the copies, there was not a spark of the spirit of the Originals lost ” .
The first pages of Riepenhausen's main work appeared in Lichtenberg's calendar, comprising a total of 89 miniaturized reproductions based on engravings by William Hogarth. The socially critical, humorous / satirical works of the English artist found great interest in Germany at the time of the civil enlightenment . The relatively high price of the originals had stood in the way of widespread circulation, Riepenhausen's minor re-engravings changed the situation. Some of these sheets were added to the Göttingen pocket calendar from 1785, the complete series was then published in 14 picture booklets between 1794 and 1835 by Dieterich in Göttingen. The title text read: "GC Lichtenberg's detailed explanation of the Hogarthische Kupferstiche, with reduced but complete copies of them by EL Riepenhausen."
Riepenhausen had worked on Lichtenberg's pocket calendar since 1783 and, in addition to the reproductions based on Hogarth, contributed a large number of fashion coppers , illustrations, caricatures and the like. He provided similar work for a number of comparable publications. Some of them were also published by the publisher Johann Christian Dieterich in Göttingen, who was friends with Riepenhausen, others in Gotha or Berlin. There were also illustrations for various literary works, for example for novels by the writer Adolph Freiherr Knigge (1752–1796) and for poems by Gottfried August Bürger (1747–1794), with whom Riepenhausen was close friends; The poet spent the last six years of his often unhappy life in the house of his friend in Gottingen. However, Riepenhausen achieved the best income with small-format copperplate engravings for the pages of the archives , which he also sold himself. Such sheets could be added loosely to the then popular family books. His motifs were initially portraits of poets and visual artists, from 1812 mainly landscapes; 58 of them showed Göttingen and the surrounding area, plus about 240 views from other parts of Germany and from foreign countries.
Riepenhausen was also involved in the antique reception of his time. The painter Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein employed him in the production of the scientific archaeological copper engraving illustrations for his work " Homer drawn from antiquities", which was published in 1801 by Dieterich. In 1799 and 1800, Tischbein came repeatedly to Göttingen from his place of residence in Kassel . Between 1803 and 1805 Riepenhausen made re-engravings based on outline drawings that the Englishman John Flaxman had made in Rome in 1793 for Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . In 1795 Tommaso Piroli first engraved these drawings in copper. Riepenhausen's re-engravings contributed to widespread knowledge of the classicist outline style, which was valued by Goethe and the German Romantics and which influenced other artists, including Riepenhausen's sons Franz and Johannes.
The sons Franz and Johannes
The two sons traveled to Rome for professional reasons in 1805 and stayed there until the end of their lives. Her father, now married for the second time, never saw her again, but the close personal and professional bond was maintained through letters and the exchange of drawings. In 1818 Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen wrote: “My dear children! Every day I want to be closer and closer to you, to finally see you again. With no object is my imagination so great as the thought of you ” ; and 1827: “Now Johannes will look different. When I look into the blue, I can imagine you very well, but then I get all the more sad because I have no trace of your now Italian face ... "
University engraver
As a university engraver, Riepenhausen illustrated scientific publications for Göttingen professors in a wide variety of fields. His clients included doctors, mathematicians, historians, archaeologists, biologists and mineralogists . However, there was no salary associated with the title; his fees had to be freely agreed in each case. He had to struggle with financial problems repeatedly. In June 1818 he applied to the university's board of trustees for a fixed annual salary: “Just bringing up my children, two sons of whom live as not unknown artists in Rome, cost so much that as my years approached, I allow myself the request to allow myself an annual salary Approve. " In a letter of recommendation, the then famous doctor Langenbeck underlined: " Riepenhausen is indispensable for all teachers at our university when it comes to highlighting a work that has to be engraved. For a long time he has been making copperplate engravings on the works of the Göttingen professors. It is particularly indispensable for my anatomical works ... ” Despite additional recommendations, Riepenhausen's proposal initially had no consequences. Only after a further request was he granted an annual salary of 100 thalers on August 9, 1820 , which was sufficient as a pension.
Retirement
In later years Riepenhausen was also active as an art dealer . In the course of his professional life he had built up an extensive private collection of graphic works; In 1838 he sent a printed catalog of the sheets he wanted to part with. He worked as a copper engraver well into old age. Contemporaries described him as a sociable, popular and respected old man with a yellowish wig . In 1827 he wrote to his sons: “Wherever I go and stand, I am welcomed with open arms everywhere, but I also do no wrong to anyone. I also imagine all of this from you. You can't buy this for money and you can enjoy it yourself. ” Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen died in his Göttingen house after a short illness at the age of 77.
literature
- GK Nagler: New General Artist Lexicon Vol. 13, Munich 1843
- Hugo Endtricht: On the life story of Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen , in: Göttingische Neben Stunden 2, 1927, pp. 72–79.
- Otto Deneke: Ernst Riepenhausen , in: Göttingische Nebenprüfung, No. 14, Göttingen 1936, pp. 65–85.
- E. Maria Countess Lanckoronska / A. Rümann: History of the German paperbacks and almanacs from the classical-romantic period . Munich 1954.
- Joseph Eduard Wessely : Riepenhausen, Ernst Ludwig . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 28, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, p. 566 f.
- Max Kunze (Hg): Antiquity between Classicism and Romanticism. The artist family Riepenhausen . Winckelmann Society and Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz am Rhein, 2001. ISBN 3-8053-2810-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nagler, Artist Lexicon XIII p. 169
- ↑ Deneke: Ernst Riepenhausen p. 68
- ^ Deneke: Ernst Riepenhausen, p. 68
- ↑ Max Kunze (ed.): Antiquity between classicism and romanticism. P. 2.
- ^ E. Maria Countess Lanckoronska / A. Rümann: History of the German paperbacks ... p. 15
- ↑ Max Kunze (ed.): Antiquity between classicism and romanticism. P. 11
- ↑ Max Kunze (Hg): Antiquity between Classicism and Romanticism p. 5
- ↑ Endtricht: Riepenhausen's life story, p. 77
- ↑ Endtricht: Riepenhausen's life story, p. 77
- ↑ Max Kunze (ed.): Antiquity between Classicism and Romanticism p. 6
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Riepenhausen, Ernst Ludwig |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Engraver |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 6, 1762 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Goettingen |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 27, 1840 |
| Place of death | Goettingen |