Hermann Cellarius

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Hermann Wilhelm Cellarius (born December 11, 1815 in Aurich , † June 9, 1867 in Leipzig ) was a German decorative painter, draftsman and landscape painter.

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Painting from 1845

Hermann Cellarius came from a family of book printers, but did not take up his father's profession. At the age of fifteen he began training as a room and decorative painter in Aurich. His teacher employed him as a journeyman from 1833. After the end of the three year journeyman period, he was supposed to do military service. Due to an illness, probably a less severe form of epilepsy, he did not have to serve. Instead, he immediately went on a journey to Saxony. In the following years he worked for several master painters in small towns. In addition, he created independent paintings and watercolors, preferably landscape motifs.

From 1839 Cellarius lived permanently in Leipzig, where the economy expanded since the connection to the German Zollverein in 1833. Therefore, within a few years, a relatively large number of commercial citizens with good incomes lived here, who structurally changed Leipzig. The city quickly grew and got new streets. The lavishly designed residential and commercial buildings, restaurants and cafes located next to it required many designers of all kinds to create interior decorations.

Cellarius initially worked as a master draftsman in the Schütz wallpaper factory in Leipzig. He designed patterns and thus had the opportunity to develop flowing lines that were later highly praised and to experiment with many ornaments. In addition, he created drafts, distributed his own work and decorated rooms. Since he worked reliably and solidly, it can be assumed that he had undergone extremely thorough technical training.

Cellarius knew how to choose shapes and colors in an original way, taking into account the demands and preferences of his clients. The fact that it worked cheaply increased its popularity. In the mid-1840s, he was a sought-after decorator. He decorated ceilings and walls, especially in the representative rooms of bourgeois houses. He also bronzed lamps and stoves. His not exclusively private clients were located in the surrounding small towns beyond Leipzig. In 1845 and 1846 he was commissioned to decorate the interior walls of the town hall of Oschatz . The paintings have not been preserved.

As a permanent master draftsman with additional income, Cellarius earned enough money to ask the city of Leipzig in 1846 to be recognized as a protected citizen. He was one of the few wall and decorative painters living in Leipzig. In 1847 he married Johanne Friederike Kaiser, whose father was a coffee carrier from Leipzig. His wife worked as a cleaner and did so for several years after the marriage despite the growing income of her husband. So she helped her widowed mother and a sick brother who lived in her home.

In the early 1860s Cellarius carried out his most important artistic commissions. What inspired his work is not documented. He painted some of the interior walls of the Gohliser Schlösschen that have not been preserved. He also designed the ceiling of the Golden Hall in Café Felsche . He worked here with tondi , allegorical putti and mannerist-grotesque decorations and thus created an important example of the early neo-baroque French style in Leipzig. The work in the interiors of this café was so famous that, with repeated redesigns and restorations, some up to 20th century were not removed. Drafts of these decorations can now be found in the Leipzig City Museum, as well as two sketchbooks and landscape drawings.

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personal data
SURNAME Cellarius, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cellarius, Hermann Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German decorative painter, draftsman and landscape painter
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1815
PLACE OF BIRTH Aurich
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1867
Place of death Leipzig