Johann Karl von Hedlinger

Johann Karl Hedlinger
engraving by Christian von Mechel, 1775

Johann Karl von Hedlinger (born March 28, 1691 in Seewen (municipality of Schwyz) , canton of Schwyz , † March 14, 1771 in Schwyz , canton of Schwyz) was a Swiss-Swedish medalist .

life and work

Johann Karl von Hedlinger was the son of the Swiss mine supervisor Johann Baptist H. Hedlinger and Anne Elisabeth Betschard. He only went to Seewen and in 1700, when his father became a mine supervisor in the Bolenzer and Blegno valleys, he went to the grammar school in Bellinzona.

With success and paternal support, he tried his hand at drawing and engraving, for which he made his own tools. In 1709 his father sent him to an apprenticeship with Wilhelm Krauer from Lucerne , who was mint master in Sion at the time, but a year later he became mint master in Lucerne and later the leaseholder of the mint of the bishop of Basel and the city of Biel . From that Wilhelm Krauer Hedlinger learned engraving , the art of the goldsmith and the jeweler . Under the supervision of his master, between 1710 and 1714 he cut the Lucerne mint dies and cut and minted the coins of Montbéliard and Porrentruy . His apprenticeship was interrupted in 1712 by the war between the five Catholic towns of the Swiss Confederation against Zurich and Bern , in which he participated as a volunteer and lieutenant in the Lucerne Corps.

Johann Karl Hedlinger, portrait around 1770.

In 1717 he set out from Lucerne for Nancy in order to perfect his knowledge with the court medalist Ferdinand Saint-Urbain there . Without accompanying letters or letters of recommendation, he was initially rejected and kept his head above water in his rented apartment . When Saint-Urbain saw her, Hedlinger was taken into his workshop. When his master traveled to Rome a few months later , he turned down Saint-Urbain's offer to come with him and instead moved to Paris , the center of the art of medalists.

In Paris, Hedlinger quickly found entry into the artist community of medalists and made friends in particular with François Roettiers and Launay. From Launay he even took over the execution of some medals commissioned by the king, who was extremely pleased with his work and honored him with a golden box as a token of thanks. When Hedlinger wanted to travel to England 18 months later, he and others were recruited or poached by Baron Gorizia to the court of the young Swedish King Karl XII. to come, who was occupying Norway at the time .

Hedlinger waived the travel money offered and made staying at court dependent on a sample that was given to the Swedish King Karl XII. must please. In autumn 1718 he met the Swedish King Karl XII in Norway, who was about to siege the Fredrikshald fortress . Hedlinger made him a stamp as a test piece, which the king liked so much that he sent him to Stockholm. At the same time the king ordered that all of Hedlinger's wishes be complied with so that Hedlinger would remain at court. When he arrived in Stockholm, Hedlinger was given the post of the recently deceased Arvid Karlstein, who had been a student of Roëttiers, and became director of the royal mint. His contract, which was initially limited in time, was soon converted into a lifelong, even more advantageous one, and Hedlinger promised to train students for royal service.

On November 30, 1718, Charles XII fell. at the age of 36 years during the siege of the fortress Fredrikshald and his sister Ulrika Eleonora succeeded him. She was married to Landgrave Friedrich von Hessen-Kassel . Ulrika Eleonora initiated peace negotiations to end the war that had robbed Sweden of its position as a great power in the Baltic Sea region .

She granted Hedlinger the same favor as her brother, to whom he had already dedicated four medals. In addition to his official business, he still found time to produce a medal for her coronation as Queen of Sweden on December 11, 1718, her husband's coronation as King of Sweden on May 3, 1720 and for the President of the Senate and Chancellor Count Arvid Horn brought him the recognition of the new ruling couple and of Swedish society. In the next few years Hedlinger became famous abroad for his work. Alongside Paris, Stockholm developed into another center of European medal-making.

In 1723 Tsar Peter the Great , who had already seen him in Paris, tried in vain to lure him to Saint Petersburg with promises .

In 1725 Hedlinger made a medal for Emperor Karl VI. and received leave for a trip to Italy a year later, which he also used for a detour to Switzerland when he arrived. He traveled through Italy to Naples . There he spent some time and made friends with the painter Pietro Sollima before he traveled on to Rome , where he quickly found acceptance in the local artist colony and met with the painters Francesco Trevisani and Ghezi, the sculptor Camillo Rusconi , the Lucerne engraver JJ Frey and befriended the antiquarian Ficoroni . The Pope Benedict XIII. he paid his respects with a medal, whereupon he presented him with the Knight's Cross of the Order of Christ .

Accompanied by the Swedish painter George Desmarées , he returned to Sweden after 18 months. He overcame a serious illness and in 1728 refused an invitation from the Polish King and Saxon Elector August the Strong to come to Poland . Inspired by antiquity and his trip to Italy, one of his most beautiful medals was created: his bust was depicted on the obverse without naming his name, on the lapel an owl armed with a helmet and spear of Minerva , and the inscription "„ "recorded in Greek uncials for the Swedish word " lagom " stood, as much as moderation or "not too much, not too little" meant and was his motto.

In addition to new medals for the reigning royal couple and outstanding personalities in Swedish society, he also produced a series of all Swedish kings, which began with Björn I and extended to the then ruling King Friedrich. There were no suitable templates for numbers two to nine, and so they could not be carried out. Hedlinger carried out number one and the sequence from 30 to 56 himself, while the remaining numbers ten to 29 were created according to his drafts and under his supervision by his student Daniel Fährmann .

At the invitation of Tsarina Anna Ivanovna , Hedlinger took a second vacation to St. Petersburg in 1735, where he stayed until 1737. He also immortalized Anna Ivanovna on a medal. He turned down a second invitation to the Russian court in St. Petersburg to the new Tsarina Elisabeth Petrovna in 1741 and sent her a medallion with a portrait of her on her obverse in his place. During his third vacation he visited his home country Switzerland. Here at the age of 50 he married Maria Rosa Franziska Schorno, who came from the old Swiss family of Schorno, and lived with her in Friborg, Switzerland. On a trip through Germany, Frederick the Great received him with all honors in Berlin and also tried to keep him, but without success.

Portrait of Johann Karl von Hedlinger in old age in Johann Caspar Lavater's Physiognomic Fragments , around 1775.

In 1744 Hedlinger returned alone to Stockholm, where he received the title of court manager and was made a member of the royal sciences. This should induce him to stay in Sweden, but he was drawn to his wife and to his homeland. Therefore he asked for the farewell, which was finally granted to him. At his request, his student Daniel Fährmann succeeded him as director of the royal mint. In November 1745 Hedlinger set out from Stockholm to return to Switzerland. His collection of medals and library, which had been sent before him, went down in a shipwreck and had to be laboriously recovered. On New Year's Day 1745 he arrived in Freiburg, but moved to his birthplace Seewen, where he stayed until the end of his life. Although he went on short trips, he worked in quiet seclusion in his workshop and had a lively correspondence at home and abroad, especially with Swedish friends and fellow medalists.

In this last creative period he created medals on kings and princes, on Frederick the Great , Empress Maria Theresa , King George II of Great Britain , Landgrave Wilhelm VIII of Hesse-Kassel and on Swedish statesmen and scholars. He also made a prize medal for the Academy of Sciences in Berlin , the Great Merit Medal for the Republic of Bern and an anniversary medal for the Einsiedeln Monastery , to name but a few. He also dedicated medals to his family. He recorded his marriage in 1741 and that of his only daughter in 1761 in a medal, as well as the early death of his wife in 1755. He created another medal with the portrait of his daughter in 1765. Two medals, however, remained unfinished when he was on the 14th. March 1771 died shortly before his 80th birthday in Seewen.

In 1748 he was accepted as an external member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences .

Works

Johann Karl Hedlinger
J. J. Haid : "The Knight's JKH Medal Work" (1781)

Sophie Magdalene, Queen of Denmark, medal with the sign. HEDLINGER

His work includes around 300 medals, coins, wax embossments, seals and goldsmith work.

• Four medals on King XII.
• Medal for the coronation of Ulrika Eleonora as Queen of Sweden on December 11, 1718
• Medal for the coronation of Friedrich von Hessen-Kassel as King of Sweden on May 3, 1720
• Medal for the President of the Senate and Chancellor Count Arvid Horn 1720
• Medal on the Emperor Charles VI. 1725
• Medal on Pope Benedict XIII. 1727
• Series of Swedish kings with Björn I beginning around 1728
• Medal for Tsarina Anna Ivanovna Elisabeth Petrovna around 1736
• Medal for Tsarina Elisabeth Petrovna on the obverse 1741
• Medal at his own wedding 1741
• Medal on Frederick the Great
• Medal on King George II of Great Britain
• Medal for Landgrave Wilhelm VIII of Hessen-Kassel
• Prize medal from the Academy of Sciences in Berlin
• Great Medal of Merit of the Republic of Bern
• Jubilee medal from Einsiedeln Abbey
• Medal on the death of his wife, 1755
• Medal for the wedding of his daughter, 1761,
• Medal for the Swedish King Charles XII., Obverse, 1765
• Medal on his daughter 1766
• Second lapel on the medal ΛΑΓΟΜ, unfinished, 1771
• Third medal for the Swedish Senate President and Chancellor Count Karl Gustav Tessin, unfinished, 1771

literature

• Johann Caspar Füssli : Joh. Caspar Füeßlin's story of the best artists in Switzerland. Along with their portraits . 3 vols. Orell, Geßner & Co., Zurich 1769–1779.
• Chrétien Mechel: Oeuvre Du Chévalier Hedlinger Ou Recueil Des Médailles De Ce Célèbre Artiste, gravées en taille douce . Schweighauser, Basel 1776–1778.
• Johann Karl von Hedlinger: Brief explanation of the medals of the knight Hedlinger. Along with news of his life . Nuremberg 1780. (French edition: Explication historique et critique des médailles).
• Johann Elias Haid and Johann Caspar Füssli: The knight's Johann Carl Hedlinger's medal work. Drawn by Johann Caspar Fueßli, and edited in black art by Johann Elias Haid . bey Johann Jakob Haid and son, Augsburg 1781.
• Georg von Wyß:  Hedlinger, Johann Karl Ritter von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, pp. 224-227.
• Johannes Amberg: The medalist Johann Karl Hedlinger. (Part 1) . In: The history friend . Communications from the Historical Association of the Five Places, Vol. 37, 1882, pp. 1–38.
• Hedlinger, Johann Karl . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 8, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, pp. 267–268.
• Leonard Forrer: Biographical dictionary of medallists, coin-, gem-, and seal-engravers, mint masters, & c., Ancient and modern; with references to theirs works; BC 500 - AD 1900 . Volume 2. Spink & Son, London 1904-1930, pp. 455-467. (Reprint London: Baldwin & Sons, 1979–1981, ISBN 90-70296-02-0 .)
• Arthur Suhle:  Hedlinger, Johann Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , p. 189 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Peter Felder: Medalist Johann Carl Hedlinger 1691-1771. Life and work . Sauerland, Aarau 1978, ISBN 3-7941-1775-1 .
• Markus Bamert: Medalist Johann Carl Hedlinger (1691–1771) . In: Markus Bamert and Josef Wiget (eds.): The treasure tower in Schwyz, an exhibition in the making . Schwyz 1995, pp. 34-38.

Web links

Commons : Johann Carl Hedlinger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Johann Karl von Hedlinger in the catalog of the German National Library
• Books by and about Johann Karl von Hedlinger
• Peter Felder: Hettlingen [Hedlinger], Johann Carl. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Franz Auf der Maur: Hettlingen, from [Hedlinger] (SZ). In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . (to the story of his family)
• Corinne Gasal: Hedlinger, Johann Carl. In: Sikart
• Article in the coin dictionary
• Danish page with many pictures of the medallions that Hedlinger created
• Swedish page with many pictures of the medallions that Hedlinger created
• Hedlinger's medals in the Gustavianum Museum at Uppsala University

Individual evidence

1. ^ Johann Karl von Hedlinger . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 1 : A-K . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 477 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
2. ^ Johann Karl Hedlinger. In: Members of the predecessor academies. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on April 2, 2015 .