Ismael Mengs

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Self-Portrait in Polish Costume, 1710s, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Ismael Mengs (* 1688 in Copenhagen ; † December 26, 1764 in Dresden ) was a miniature and enamel painter .

Life

Ismael Mengs came from a Lausitz family, but was born in Copenhagen and worked as a miniature painter after training in Lübeck , Hamburg and Schwerin . From 1709 he received miniature and drawing lessons from the painter Paul Heinecken in Lübeck, where he learned how to use oil paints . One of his teachers was the French painter Benedict Coiffre, who worked for the Danish court and taught him important principles of chemistry for enamel painting. He was baptized as a Protestant and became court painter in Dresden in 1714 . Ismael Mengs is considered a promoter of Freemasonry in Saxony , but did not belong to any lodge herself.

During a study trip to Italy around 1718, he was particularly impressed by the works of Raffael and Corregio . Since he was realistic enough not to be able to reach their artistic class, he tried to realize this in his children. His son Anton Raphael , born in 1728 in particular, was considered to be a strict and sometimes even tyrannical teacher. His two daughters, Theresa and Juliane, also became miniature painters. Several times he went on study trips to Rome with his children in order to train them artistically.

Ismael Mengs herself mainly painted miniature portraits, sometimes also using the enamel technique. He used the knowledge of color chemistry he acquired in the process for the development of enamel colors in favor of the Meissner porcelain factory . From 1764 he worked as a teacher at the drawing school there. Shortly before his death, he was appointed honorary professor at the newly founded Dresden Art Academy . Some of his works are in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden.

With his work Mengs influenced the style of the Italian painter Andrea Appiani .

Works (excerpt)

  • Aussiger Madonna in the parish church of Aussig (the miraculous image is a copy of the "Madonna del dito" by Carlo Dolci )
  • Self-portrait
  • Portrait of the Leipzig merchant Raabe
  • Portrait of Giacomo Casanova (unfinished)

Picture gallery

  • Miniature of a lady with her son in traditional Polish costume, 1710s, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

  • Ismael Mengs (pastel by Anton Raphael Mengs, around 1744/45, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden)

  • The Aussiger Madonna

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marcin Latka. Self-portrait in Polish costume. artinpl, accessed on July 28, 2019 .
  2. ^ Georg Beutel: Portraits of outstanding Dresden residents from five centuries . Publisher Rommler & Jonas, Dresden 1908.
  3. ^ Rudolf Grulich : A baptized Jew from Denmark and the Aussiger Madonna . In: Mitteilungen Haus Königstein , vol. 5 (2011), issue 4, p. 17.
  4. ^ Karl Wörmann: Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst / NF , Vol. 5/6 (1894), ISSN  0863-5838
  5. ↑ Marcin Latka. Miniature of a lady with a son in Polish costume. artinpl, accessed on July 28, 2019 .

literature

  • Karl Heinrich von Heinecken: Messages from Artists and Art Things, Volume 1 . Krauss Verlag, Leipzig 1768.
  • Georg Kaspar Nagler: New general artist lexicon, Vol. 9 . Verlag Fleischmann, Munich 1836.
  • Philo-Lexicon . 3rd edition Berlin 1936, col. 469-470.

Web links

Commons : Ismael Mengs  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Mengs, Ishmael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH 1688
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 1764
Place of death Dresden