Johann Caspar Zehender
Johann Caspar Zehender , also Johann Caspar Zehnter (born October 5, 1742 in Schaffhausen ; † February 5, 1805 there ) was a Swiss draftsman, painter and etcher in the last third of the 18th century. His panorama-like images record above all the state of the then free imperial city of Frankfurt am Main , the surrounding area and Mainz before the great upheavals of the early 19th century and are therefore important topographical evidence.
Life
Very little is known about the life of Zehender for an 18th century artist. His birth in 1742 in Schaffhausen , the capital of the Swiss canton of the same name, is documented, but his membership of an artist family of the same name from Bern , which can be traced back to the 16th century, is disputed. As ancestors in this case would be the 1555 to 1635 as a painter and glass painter working Hans Zehender , a 1644 born miniaturist Jean Louis Zehender , who employed from 1687 to 1757 as an architect Emanuel Zehender and be the same profession wielding son Ludwig Emanuel Zehender that of 1720 lived until 1799.
Another approach mentioned in the literature is ancestry as the older son of the Leipzig wine tavern Johann Zehender . Because his younger son, the language teacher Johann Friedrich Zehender , who was born in 1759, received Frankfurt citizenship on December 19, 1780. Thus Johann Caspar would have succeeded his younger brother, admittedly without his success, because it can be proven that he never obtained citizenship.
Zehender's exact creative time in the Rhine-Main area , but especially in Frankfurt am Main, cannot be determined. Due to the large number of his preserved works, most of which are also signed with dates, it can at least be narrowed down to the years 1770 to 1784. Following this, he stayed in the free imperial city no later than the late 1760s . In Georgium in Dessau , there are two pictures of him, including a female portrait, signed with Madame de Streegen born Aul, par Tenth à Frt. 1799 . Since Zehender is buried in his hometown, he cannot have returned to his homeland until six years before his death in 1805 at the earliest.
plant
Zehender mostly made chalk - or sepia - ink drawings and watercolors , more rarely also etchings and colored gouaches as well as oil paintings . In terms of quality, he could not match Frankfurt greats of the time such as Christian Georg Schütz the Elder. Ä. or Johann Ludwig Ernst Morgenstern , even if compared to the early works, especially from the period 1770 to 1772, it later increased again significantly. However, it was precisely his baroque idealizing, brazenly realistic style that created an important image of the Rhine-Main area at the end of the old empire, which was unique in its topographical accuracy and completeness . Only a few years after Zehender's death, the cityscape, unchanged in its entirety for centuries, changed forever when classicism arrived and the huge fortifications from the Middle Ages and the period of the Thirty Years' War disappeared.
His main work was commissioned for the Frankfurt art collector and patron Johann Christian Gerning (1745–1802). Gerning inherited the funds for this from his father, the Bielefeld merchant Peter Florenz Gerning (1695–1764). From Johann Christian Gernings marriage to the daughter of the aldermen and later city Schultheissen Johann Isaak Moors , Maria Magdalena Moors , who went a lawyer , writer and friend of Goethe , Johann Isaac of Gerning forth.
Towards the end of the 1760s, Gerning must have come up with the plan to publish a multi-volume work with copperplate engravings of the city and its surroundings. Zehender was entrusted with the preliminary drawings, according to which the engraver would then manufacture the printing plates for mass production. As part of this contract, Zehender was on the road for years in the entire Rhine-Main area up to the gates of Mainz , of which 32 drawings alone under the title “Prospects of the electoral residence city of Maynz and its area drawn from nature, collected by Johann Christian Gerning in Franckfurth am Mayn 1772 “ .
The preliminary drawings for the Frankfurt views by Gerning are also in a large folio folder with the title “The pleasant location of the city of Frankfurt am Mayn, presented in many hand drawings of this city and area, collected there by Johann Christian Gerning in 1771, 1772 and 1773 ” received. For unknown reasons, the patron never implemented the plan to publish it. Zehender apparently later repeated some views from the work for Gerning for private individuals, so that today some of his works can also be found in museums, especially in Frankfurt's Städel , as well as in private collections.
Gerning's son Johann Isaak, who had remained childless, inherited his vast art collection and bequeathed large parts of it to his hometown while he was still alive. Another part went to a friend, the Wiesbaden archivist Friedrich Gustav Habel from Schierstein , from whom the old city library in the 19th century took over the remaining works Zehenders with reference to Frankfurt as well as the aforementioned series from Mainz and the surrounding area. From here they went to the historical museum of the city, where they survived the Second World War without loss thanks to outsourcing and are still in the graphic collection today. In total, excluding the Mainz views, there are 145 images.
Very little of the still extensive remains of Gerning's art collection has so far been published: 1903–1904 Joseph Baer's publishing house published three large-format portfolios, each with ten pictures by Zehender in collotype, under the title “Views of Frankfurt am Main in the eighteenth century. "Flood and Shore, Land and Heights" at the time of young Goethe " , 1954 published by Waldemar Kramer. Another 32 pictures (including some repetitions of the previous publication) under the title " The pleasant location of the city of Frankfurt am Main " in landscape format Quart.
Zehender rated the reception of the 19th century as not very important, as his documentary qualities were placed below his average artistic achievements. A corresponding reassessment is still pending. Because of this, and because there has not been an exhibition of his works since Zehender's death, he has remained one of the least known Frankfurt artistic personalities to this day.
literature
- Gerhard Bott: The pleasant location of the city of Frankfurt am Main. Waldemar Kramer publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 1954.
- Philipp Friedrich Gwinner : Art and Artists in Frankfurt am Main from the thirteenth century to the opening of the Städel'schen Kunstinstitut. Publisher by Joseph Baer, Frankfurt am Main 1862, p. 349 u. 350.
- Philipp Friedrich Gwinner: Additions and corrections to art and artists in Frankfurt am Main from the thirteenth century to the opening of the Städel'schen Kunstinstitut. Published by Joseph Baer, Frankfurt am Main 1867, p. 123 u. 124.
- Adam Hammeran (text), Johann Kaspar Zehender (illustrations): Views of Frankfurt am Main in the eighteenth century. “Flood and Shore, Land and Heights” at the time of the young Goethe. Carl Jügel's Verlag (M. Abendroth), Frankfurt am Main 1903–1904.
- Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . Second volume. M – Z (= publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 2 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-7829-0459-1 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Johann Caspar Zehender in the catalog of the German National Library
- Examples of images from Zehender on artnet
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zehender, Johann Caspar |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Tenth, Johann Caspar |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss draftsman, painter and etcher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 5, 1742 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Schaffhausen |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 5, 1805 |
| Place of death | Schaffhausen |