Great whale picture
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| Great whale picture |
|---|
| Franz Wulfhagen , 1669 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 355 × 955 cm |
| Bremen Town Hall , Bremen |
The Great Whale Picture is an oil painting by the German painter Franz Wulfhagen . It was created in 1669 and hangs in the Bremen town hall . At 3.55 × 9.55 meters, it is the largest known painting by a whale .
description
The large whale picture by Franz Wulfhagen shows a largely true-to-scale, naturalistic depiction of a northern minke whale ( Balaenoptera acutorostrata ) in original size over the entire length of the format and 3 ⁄ 6 of its height - an animal that is exotic even by today's standards. The depiction deliberately does not use the previously common images of whales as terrible sea monsters. The only thing that is obviously unrealistic is the fountain of water that the animal, lying on dry land, emits.
Behind the silhouette of the whale lying on the bank you can see the river Lesum , on which a few small boats are traveling. The background of the scenery on the upper 2 ⁄ 6 of the canvas is formed by the sky and the hill called the Hohes Ufer of the Osterholzer Geest . The lower 1 ⁄ 6 of the picture height at the foot of the painting are separated with a horizontal line, which is only overlapped at the right edge by the fin of the whale. Here is the additional inscription in gold letters on a dark background:
- “ANNO 1669. on May 8th, a whale fish uffm sand in Leeßmer strohm approaching Leßmer Bruche was shot. brought to ships in this way. and on May 9th to Bremen also cut the meat there. and is the length of this fish found from the mouth to the eye 5 feet. From the mouth bit to the tail 29 feet. the floss feathers 3 feet the tail in the width 9 feet. the circumference of the whale is 12 feet thick. Pictured according to natural size and the bones stapled together were hung up for memory on June 28th, 1669. "
Background (The Whale in the Lesum)
On May 8, 1669, a female minke whale over 9 meters in length and 3 meters in circumference reached the confluence of the Lesum with the Weser and was hunted by Bremen whalers . Presumably the animal was searching for food and had followed salmon upstream.
In northern Mercury of May 10, 1669 it was stated:
- “It was named yesterday / near a local city / in a river / Lessum / which is an arm from the Weser / a whale fish / whose length is 29 feet / shot / and was brought to this city today. All townspeople run there to see them. "
Peter Koster wrote in his 17th century chronicle:
- “Anno 1669, the 8th of May, a large finfish, 29 feet long and quite thick, was caught in the mouth of Leeßum above the sweeping sack, shot through with a bullet, and subsequently beaten to death. He was taken to a praam in Bremen, a few tons of bacon distilled from his bacon, but the bones were neatly put back together and hung on a pole on top of the square house, where even he, actually ground down after life, can be seen on the wall, there Refer readers. "
Due to the increasing siltation, the water depth of the Lower Weser was so shallow in the 17th century that seagoing ships could often only reach Bremen at high tide. In addition, before the Weser was corrected at the end of the 19th century , the course of the river was still criss-crossed by numerous branches, islands and sandbanks, so that a whale ran the risk of getting lost and easy prey when the tide was low. Over the years, whales have made their way into the Weser and its tributaries several times. So was z. B. In 1608 a whale was caught and killed near Lesumbrook, another one stranded near Lemwerder in 1670.
However, the whale of 1699 acquired special significance as it became the subject of a symbolic political dispute between the city of Bremen and Sweden . After the First Bremen-Swedish War (1654) and the Second Bremen-Swedish War (1666), the Lesum formed the border between the Bremen area (on the southern bank) and - with the exception of Vegesack - the Duchy of Bremen-Verden , which was under Swedish sovereignty (on the north bank). It is not known which bank the whale was stranded on - however, both parties claimed that the valuable animal was found on their side of the river. Regardless of this, Bremen whalers from Vegesack were the first to take the initiative, hunt the whale, brought it to Bremen, cut it up on the pig pasture and cooked oil from its bacon. The skeleton of the whale was "gracefully put back together" on behalf of the council and hung as a trophy on the beamed ceiling of the Upper Town Hall until 1815.
In the course of the controversy about the legality of the appropriation of the animal, Council Syndicus Johann Wachmann had to travel to Stade to negotiate with the Swedes , where the city defended its claim and refused to surrender the animal or skeleton with the argument that “the whale would have turned after receiving the first shot moved from the Leesum court to the Bremen side and thrown onto the mud, where himself a nostris was completely shot, occupied and delivered to Bremen […]. ”This view is also reflected in the composition of the picture, in which the Hohe Ufer is a reference in the background the artist (or the client) is sure that the opposite side of the river is the northern bank of the Lesum, so the whale was stranded in Bremen and the appropriation was therefore lawful.
Origin and meaning
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Immediately after the discovery of the whale, the city council commissioned the respected Bremen painter Franz Wulfhagen, who had been a student of Rembrandt , to paint a picture of the sea creature "after life". For his work he received the high sum of 95 silver marks . The painting was hung on the north wall of the Upper Town Hall , where it hung between the portals to the Rhederkammer and the Neue Wittheitsstube in the middle above the portal with the panel from 1491 for almost three centuries.
When the hall was repainted in 1965, the large whale picture came into the magazine of the Überseemuseum . On the occasion of the W (H) ALE exhibition in the Städtische Galerie in 1992, the picture was removed from the depot. This revealed cracks and stains in the canvas , which made it necessary to work on the painting for conservation purposes. In 1997, a thorough restoration was carried out in Kiel by Markus Freitag. The picture was then exhibited for a few years in the whaling department in the Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven until it came back to the town hall in 2008, where Hans-Joachim Manske , head of the visual arts, monument preservation and regional archeology department, had campaigned for his return. It is now hanging in its original location in the Upper Hall. To secure the large-format picture with steel cables, winches were installed in the roof structure of the town hall .
Even if the whale picture has no outstanding art-historical value, it nevertheless achieved (together with the whale skeleton) great cultural and historical importance for Bremen and is considered to be a symbol of the successful assertion of the city and its independence against its powerful neighbors.
Individual evidence
- ^ Konrad Elmshäuser , Hans-Christoph Hoffmann, Hans-Joachim Manske (eds.): The town hall and the Roland on the market square in Bremen . Edition Temmen , Bremen 2002, ISBN 978-3-86108-682-6 , pp. 113 .
- ↑ a b Back in the Bremen town hall: The whale picture now adorns the Upper Hall again. Retrieved August 31, 2010 .
- ↑ a b Arnulf Marzluf: The salmon was probably his undoing . In: Weser courier . August 2, 2008.
- ^ Peter Koster : Chronicle of the Imperial Free Imperial and Hanseatic City of Bremen 1600–1700 . Temmen, Bremen 2004, ISBN 3-86108-687-5 , p. 278 f .
- ↑ Natural Science Association to Bremen (Ed.): Treatises . tape 18 , 1906.
- ^ Herbert Schwarzwälder : Bremen in the 17th century. Glory and misery of a Hanseatic city . Edition Temmen, Bremen 1996, ISBN 978-3-86108-526-3 , pp. 148 .
- ^ Adam Storck : Views of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and its surroundings . Bremen 1822, p. 172 f .
literature
- Jörn Christiansen (Hrsg.): Art and citizenship in Bremen . Hauschild Verlag , Bremen 2000, ISBN 3-89757-063-7 .
- Konrad Elmshäuser, Hans-Christoph Hoffmann, Hans-Joachim Manske (Hrsg.): The town hall and the Roland on the market square in Bremen . Edition Temmen, Bremen 2002, ISBN 978-3-86108-682-6 .
- Peter Koster: Chronicle of the Imperial Free Imperial and Hanseatic City of Bremen 1600–1700 . Edition Temmen, Bremen 2004, ISBN 3-86108-687-5 .
