Gérard de la Barthe

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View of the Kremlin in Moscow: a colored engraving after a picture by Gérard de la Barthe by Gabriel Ludwig Lory; There is also a monochrome version by Matthias Gottfried Eichler
A view of Moscow: drawing by Gérard de la Barthe
An engraving by Matthias Gottfried Eichler based on the above drawing by Gérard de la Barthe

Gérard de la Barthe (* 1730 in Rouen ; † 1810 in Russia ), also known as Gérard De la Barthe , Guérard de La Barthe or Girard de La Barthe , was a French draftsman, etcher and painter who only became an old man Russia (from 1787 to 1810) created his actual work (mainly paintings of cityscapes). Little is known of his immediate living conditions.

Fields of activity

Gérard de la Barthe received his education around 1750 at the school of Joseph-Marie Vien (1716–1809) in Paris . What he then created in France over the next few years and decades is largely unknown. (A trace of this can be found in the British Museum , where two engravings from 1779 by Gérard de la Barthe, which he engraved after Italian landscapes by the Dutch painter Jan Both (1618–1652).)

In 1787, Gérard de la Barthe, perhaps recruited by tsarist government agencies, went to Russia, where Catherine the Great was ruling at the time . There he became a resident of Moscow and probably remained so until the end of his life.

In the course of the 1790s, Gérard de la Barthe drew and painted a series of pictures with views of Moscow and St. Petersburg that looked very lively through the depiction of figures and people. In the midst of the urban environment (mainly in Moscow) they showed Russian life, the hustle and bustle in this country, which seemed quite exotic and attractive to Western European eyes. And that is probably why the Swiss businessman Johann (Jean) Walser came up with the idea of ​​having the pictures engraved and disseminating them widely, which he hoped would be a good profit. So he hired German and Swiss etchers and engravers for the Russian prospectuses (as he called this project), who then carried out this work in Herisau , Switzerland . The Russian prospectuses were published in Moscow in 1799 and attracted much attention. They have been shown in exhibitions in France, England and Germany several times, and Gérard de la Barthe has become very famous due to its wide distribution.

In addition, Gérard de la Barthe created many other pictures with views and also landscapes in Russia, in a pleasant manner as it is called in a contemporary encyclopedia entry; including many watercolors that he (as the same entry says) painted particularly beautifully.

literature

  • Cynthia Hyla Whittaker, Edward Kasinec, Robert H. Davis: Russia Engages the World: 1453-1825 , Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 2003, ISBN 0-674-01193-7
  • Hans Ottomeyer , Susan Tipton: Katharina die Große , (catalog book for the exhibition of the same name by the Staatliche Museen Kassel, Wintershall AG, Kassel, and RAO Gazprom, Moscow, in the Museum Fridericianum), Edition Minerva, Eurasburg 1997
  • Guérard de La Barthe, Rainer Behrends: Picturesque Views of Moscow: 1794–1797 , Edition Leipzig , Leipzig 1976
  • Georg Kaspar Nagler : New general artist lexicon: or news of the life and works of painters, sculptors, builders, engravers etc. (Volume 1) , Verlag Ernst August Fleischmann, Munich 1835
  • Friedrich Campe: Painter's lexicon for hand use for art lovers (including monograms) , printed and published by Campesche Buchhandlung, Nuremberg 1833

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ These engravings are also mentioned by Georg Kaspar Nagler and it is further stated by him that de la Barthe etched small landscapes in a round format.
  2. ↑ These were among others Heinrich Guttenberg , Matthias Gottfried Eichler , Paul Jacob Laminit and Gabriel Ludwig Lory .
  3. ↑ Georg Kaspar Nagler.
personal data
SURNAME La Barthe, Gerard de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES La Barthe, Gerard De; La Barthe, Guérard de; La Barthe, Girard de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French draftsman, etcher and painter
DATE OF BIRTH 1730
PLACE OF BIRTH Rouen
DATE OF DEATH 1810
Place of death Russia