Francesco Carlo Rusca

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Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia
Portrait of the sons of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia. The attribution is disputed.
The vision of John the Evangelist (1737)

Francesco Carlo Rusca or Carlo Francesco Rusca (also Knights of Rusca ) (* 1. January 1693 in Torricella-Taverne / Ticino ; † 11. May 1769 in Milan ) was a Swiss painter who in his time especially for his portraits was known .

Live and act

Early days

Rusca was born in Torricella in Ticino. Little is known about its early days. He first studied law in Turin and also did his doctorate . He then went to Venice to train as a painter and was a student of Jacopo Amigoni until his departure from Venice in 1717. He studied in particular the works of Titian and Paolo Veronese , to whose style he leaned closely. His first portraits of people from the Sardinian royal family caused a sensation. After completing his training, he first worked in Switzerland, in Solothurn and Bern .

At a young age he was married to Maria Theresia Schmidt from St. Blasien , born on May 26, 1704. They had a son, Nikolaus Ruska, born on December 6th, 1723. His wife died early, on May 17th, 1735 in Urberg . His son Nikolaus was very old for the time, he died on July 12, 1810 at the age of 86 in Grafenhausen .

Working in Germany

Rusca first went to Kassel in 1733 , at the invitation of and in the service of Landgrave Wilhelm VIII of Hesse-Kassel , for whom he created a life-size portrait among other works. He stayed there until 1736, from 1737 he was in Hanover and later in Berlin , where he made portraits of members of the Prussian royal family. In 2010 Helmut Börsch-Supan denied the attribution of the portrait of the sons of Friedrich Wilhelm I to Rusca in favor of Georg Lisiewski because of similarities with Lisiewski's portrait of the family of a Prussian general and because he lacks the "solemn pathos" of Rusca. Further stations in Rusca were Wolfenbüttel and Braunschweig in 1738/1739.

Time in London and return to Italy

In 1739 he settled in London . His portrait painting was in great demand at the English court. King George II awarded him the title of "Cavaliere", which is why he is also listed as a Knight of Rusca . He stayed in England until 1742 at the latest and then returned to Italy. In the 1750s he also worked for the Spanish royal family . He still worked in various Italian cities, mainly in Milan , where he died on May 11, 1769.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe knew his works and valued his work.

Lore

Rusca's extensive work is now scattered in museums and collections across Europe. A drawing from his time in Kassel has also been preserved in the graphic collection of the State Museums in Kassel, it shows Landgrave Wilhelm VIII and is made in black chalk on blue paper with white highlights (inventory number GS 1975/57).

literature

  • Walter Killy (Ed.): Dictionary of German Biography. Vol. 8, Plett - Schmidseder. Saur Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-598-23298-5 . ( DBE )
  • Christiane Lukatis, Hans Ottomeyer (Ed.): With brush, pen and pen - master drawings of the graphic collection. Exhibition catalog Staatliche Museen Kassel. Edition Minerva, Wolfratshausen 2000, ISBN 3-931787-12-5 .

Web links

Commons : Francesco Carlo Rusca  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carlo Francesco Rusca
  2. ↑ Ders .: Gemalte Menschlichkeit , p. 24. In: Helmut Börsch-Supan, Wolfgang Savelsberg (ed.): Christoph Friedrich Reinhold Lisiewski (1724–1795) , Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-422- 07036-3 , pp. 17-40
personal data
SURNAME Rusca, Francesco Carlo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rusca, Francesco Carlo Ritter von; Rusca, Carlo Francesco
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss Rococo painter, portrait painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1693
PLACE OF BIRTH Torricella tavern , Ticino
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 1769
Place of death Milan