Johann Ernst Heinsius

Johann Ernst Heinsius (born May 21, 1731 in Ilmenau , † October 18, 1794 in Erfurt ) was a German painter .

Life

Friedrich Ferdinand Konstantin von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach Portrait by JH Heinsius after Johann Georg Ziesenis

He worked for several courts in Thuringia , in particular for Duke Karl August von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1757–1828) in Weimar , and earned a lasting name for himself as a portrait and portrait painter. One of his most important portraits is that of Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach from 1773. Goethe was also portrayed by him. Otherwise, his contacts with the Goethe Circle remained rather limited, apart from Anna Amalia herself. There is evidence of his activity at the Heidecksburg in Rudolstadt as well as at the court of Hildburghausen until 1769. From 1772 he initially supervised the picture gallery of the Wilhelmsburg in Weimar as court painter, which, however, had already been done with the fire in 1774. He did not have an adequate life in Weimar, which was mainly prevented by illness, debts and mismanagement of his family. The Duke gave him leave of absence for three years in 1781, during which Heinsius was successful in Hamburg . There he had worked mainly for the wealthy citizens. A portrait of Johanna Margaretha Sieveking comes from this time . When he returned to Weimar three years later, he found the profit made by his family had already been used up. His continuing economic hardship could only be alleviated by a position as a teacher in 1788 at the Princely Free Drawing School in Weimar , headed by Georg Melchior Kraus .

Heinsius was born in Ilmenau as the son of the lockmaker and gunsmith, who had given up his craft at an early age, and of the painter Johann Christian Heintze, who worked at the Rudolstadt court, and died in the Electorate of Mainz, Erfurt, where he had recently retired.

He is the brother of the painter Johann Julius Heinsius . He is often confused with this.

literature

Walther Scheidig : Heinsius, Ernst. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , p. 441 f. ( Digitized version ).
Hedwig Dauch-Schroeder: Johann Ernst Heinsius (1731-1794). A Thuringian portrait painter from the Goethe era , 1940.

Web links

Commons : Johann Ernst Heinsius - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Ernst Beutler and Josefine Rumpf: Pictures from the Free German Hochstift, Frankfurt Goethemuseum, Verlag Der Goldene Brunnen, Frankfurt am Main 1949, p. 61.
↑ Werner Schneiders: The German and the French Heinsius. Questions to a portrait of the 18th century , in: Das Eighteenth Century: Journal of the German Society for Research in the Eighteenth Century 23/1 (1999), p. 79 ff.

personal data
SURNAME	Heinsius, Johann Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German painter
DATE OF BIRTH	May 21, 1731
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ilmenau
DATE OF DEATH	October 18, 1794
Place of death	Erfurt

[1] Ernst Beutler and Josefine Rumpf: Pictures from the Free German Hochstift, Frankfurt Goethemuseum, Verlag Der Goldene Brunnen, Frankfurt am Main 1949, p. 61.

[2] Werner Schneiders: The German and the French Heinsius. Questions to a portrait of the 18th century , in: Das Eighteenth Century: Journal of the German Society for Research in the Eighteenth Century 23/1 (1999), p. 79 ff.