Jacques Alfred van Muyden

Jacques Alfred van Muyden (born October 22, 1818 in Lausanne ; † May 11, 1898 in Champel ) was a Swiss history , genre and portrait painter , copperplate engraver and co-founder of the Society of Swiss Painters and Sculptors.

Jacques Alfred van Muyden, 1900

Mother with children
on the way home

Muyden was the son of Jakob Muyden († 1849), who immigrated from Utrecht and naturalized in 1822, and Sophie Porta († 1845) from Lausanne. His father was a member of the Lausanne city ​​council and owned the "La Chataignerie" estate.

After completing school, Muyden studied law at the University of Lausanne in 1833 , where he trained a. a. Know Georges Bridel . When Muyden joined the Zofingerverein, he met the later philosopher Charles Secretan (1815–1895) and Luigi Amedeo Melegari .

After passing his exams, Muyden traveled to Munich and began to study with Wilhelm von Kaulbach at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1838 . Muyden wrote diaries from 1838 to 1857.

After a short stay in Switzerland, Muyden returned to Munich and returned to Lausanne in 1842. On the advice of Marc-Louis Arlaud , he moved to Rome where he had a studio on Via del Babuino and was in contact with many contemporary artists.

In 1848 he returned to Lausanne and in 1849 married the sister of the Geneva painter Etienne Duval (1824–1914), granddaughter of Wolfgang-Adam Töpffer (1766–1847). They had ten children together. Three sons - Albert-Steven, Evert and Henri - later became painters. Muyden had his studio in Coppet on the Rue des Belles-Filles.

Muyden spent the years 1850 to 1856 in Rome, after which the artist came back to Geneva and settled in a villa in the Champel district of Geneva. Here he had u. a. Contact Henri Charles Antoine Baron , Barthélemy Menn , Victor Cherbuliez , Marc Monnier and the editor of the Journal de Genève, Marc Debrit.

In 1853, Muyden exhibited his works in Lausanne with great success. In 1857 he sent his refectory of the Capuchins of Albano, painted in 1854, to the Paris Salon , where he received a medal. The work was acquired by Napoleon III . This sold the painting to Guillaume Henri Dufour .

In 1857, together with August Turrettini, Muyden founded the “Société des Amis des Beaux-Arts” (Society of Friends of the Fine Arts) and the permanent exhibition, of which he was a member of the commission for twenty-three years. In 1860 Myden was a founding member of the "Société des Peintres et Sculpteurs Suisses" (Society of Swiss Painters and Sculptors), of which he was three times president.

As a delegate of the Geneva and the Federal Art Commission, he supported the participation of Swiss artists for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1867 and the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873 .

From 1880 to 1882, Muyden successfully campaigned for the copyrights of a work not to belong to the owner but to the author of the work.

literature

• Albert Gessler: Jacques Alfred van Muyden. In: Schweizer Illustrierte , Vol. 6, 1902, pp. 9-16.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Register entry for Jacques Alfred van Muyden
2. ↑ Marc Debrit

Web links

Commons : Jacques Alfred van Muyden  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• William Hauptman: Muyden, Alfred van. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• William Hauptman: Muyden, Jacques Alfred van. In: Sikart (French)
• Works by Alfred van Muydens on artnet