Ferdinand Shimon

Ferdinand Schimon, self-portrait, pencil drawing, Vienna 1820 - Munich, City Museum

Ferdinand Schimon, self-portrait, Pest 1843 - Budapest, Hungarian National Gallery

Ferdinand Schimon (born April 6, 1797 in Buda , † August 29, 1852 in Munich ) was a German opera singer ( tenor ) and portrait painter .

Life

Shimon was born in Buda and came to Vienna at an early age , where he studied with Johann Baptist Lampi the Elder. J. trained as a painter. In 1818 he painted the castle actors Joseph Koberwein and Maximilian Korn , and he also portrayed nobles. The composer Franz Schubert , with whom he was friends, encouraged him to become a singer. While still in Vienna he appeared on August 19, 1820 at the world premiere of Schubert's opera Die Zauberharfe in the role of Palmerin.

In 1821 he moved to Munich and worked on July 1 in Ludwig van Beethoven's opera Fidelio at the Munich Court Opera. As a singer of the court opera, he mostly took on supporting roles, for example in The Marriage of Figaro the role of Basilio or in The Mute of Portici den Lorenzo. In 1840 he retired after losing his vote.

He continued to paint, for example the musician, composer and conductor Louis Spohr . He was also involved in the painting of the loggias of the Neue Pinakothek under Clemens von Zimmermann . His most famous works include a portrait of Carl Maria von Weber from 1825 and a portrait of Beethoven.

family

Carl Maria von Weber, portrait of Ferdinand Schimon, 1825 - Dresden, Städtische Galerie

His brother Maximilian Schimon (1805-1859) was also a painter. Schimon's son Adolf Schimon was a pianist, singing teacher and composer, his wife Anna Schimon-Regan was a singer and taught at the Leipzig Conservatory and at the Royal Academy of Music in Munich.

Schimon's Beethoven portrait

Detail from a copy of the portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven by Ferdinand Schimon (1819), Boston Public Library

Anton Schindler , Beethoven's temporary secretary and later biographer, claims to have suggested Shimon to portray Beethoven. Accordingly, the portrait was created in the autumn of 1819. Today, however, it has been proven that Schindler first made the acquaintance of Beethoven years later, so that his description is probably a free invention.

It is possible that the portrait was created as early as 1815 at the suggestion of Beethoven's childhood friend Johann Joseph Eichhoff , who visited Beethoven on March 27, 1815 in Vienna. After his return, Eichhoff reported on May 6, 1815 during a meeting of the Bonn Reading Society that Beethoven had commissioned a portrait of himself for the society, which the society never received for unknown reasons. There are some indications that this was the Shimon portrait, especially since the reading society registered its claim to this portrait after Beethoven's death and asked Schindler to leave it to the city of Bonn.

The oval oil painting on canvas measures 59 × 46 cm and depicts Beethoven face to face. He is wearing a dark blue coat and looking up at the sky. A mountain backdrop forms the background. The painting came into the possession of the Berlin State Library through Anton Schindler and has been on permanent loan to the Beethoven House in Bonn since 1890 .

Other artists leaned on Schimon's portrait of Beethoven, such as Carl Mittag for his drawing, Friedrich Eduard Eichens and Robert Reyher for copperplate engravings , Paul Rohrbach for a lithograph and Fritz Lomens for a pen drawing from 1934.

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Shimon, Ferdinand . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 29th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1875, pp. 342–344 ( digitized version ).
• Hyacinth Holland :  Shimon, Ferdinand . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 31, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, p. 272 ​​f.
• Hubert Reitterer: Shimon Ferdinand. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 10, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-7001-2186-5 , p. 142.
• Klaus Martin Kopitz , The Beethoven Portrait by Ferdinand Schimon. A portrait created for the Bonn Reading Society in 1815? , in: Contributions to Beethoven's biography and creative process. Rainer Cadenbach in memory , ed. by Jürgen May, Bonn 2011, pp. 73–88, ISBN 978-3-88188-124-1 ( PDF )
• Silke Bettermann, Beethoven in the picture. The representation of the composer in the visual arts from the 18th to the 21st century. Bonn 2012.

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand Schimon  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Illustration of Schimon's Beethoven portrait with commentary on the Beethoven-Haus website
• Ferdinand Schimon in the Carl Maria von Weber Complete Edition
• Ferdinand Schimon at Allmusic

Individual evidence

1. ^ Károly Lyka : Shimon, Ferdinand . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 30 : Scheffel – Siemerding . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1936, p. 73 . via AKLONLINE
2. ↑ Short biography of Ferdinand Schimons , Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe
3. ^ Anton Schindler, biography of Ludwig van Beethoven. 3rd edition, Münster 1860, Volume 2, p. 288 f.
4. ↑ Beethoven-Haus catalog ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ katalog.beethoven-haus-bonn.de ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.