Johann Gotthard von Müller
Johann Gotthard Müller , from 1808 von Müller , (born May 4, 1747 in Bernhausen , † March 14, 1830 in Stuttgart ) was a German engraver .
Life
Johann Gotthard Müller was a son of the Bernhausen mayor Johannes Müller and was born in Rosenstrasse 22 in Bernhausen. Through his mother, who came from a parsonage and was the sister of the Bernhausen pastor Bischoff, he was related to several clergymen who prepared him for training at the grammar school. At the age of 14 he began his high school in Stuttgart, in order to study later at the theological seminary in Tübingen . In addition to school lessons, he also attended the public dial tone lessons at the Académie des Arts, which Duke Carl Eugen had set up in 1761. His teacher became aware of Müller's talent and also informed the duke about it. He tried to persuade Müller to study art, but the young man refused to give up his planned career for a long time.
A few days before his planned admission to the Tübingen monastery, however, he changed his decision. He received a scholarship of 100 guilders per year and began studying at the academy on September 4, 1764. His teacher in painting was Nicolas Guibal . At the beginning of 1770, on the orders of the Duke, he moved to Paris with a further scholarship, this time amounting to 400 guilders per year , in order to be trained in copperplate engraving. According to the Duke's order, he shouldn't have neglected painting in Paris, but Müller, who excelled above all in drawing, soon concentrated entirely on copperplate engraving. He was instructed in Paris by Johann Georg Wille . During this phase he signed his works with “G. Miller "; from 1772 he used the name form Müller. The first copper engraving, which he apparently no longer considered a student's work, was done in 1773. He reproduced a painting by the court painter R. Jollain , which showed the nymph Erigone. Müller dedicated the plate for this engraving to his duke.
In 1774 Lavater wrote to Müller to hire him as a collaborator for his Physiognomic Fragments. Apparently there was no collaboration. It is controversial whether Müller Lavater provided at least some vignettes . In the late phase of his studies, Müller turned down various assignments in order to be able to concentrate on his training. A copper engraving from 1774 is La Joueuse de Cistre after a picture by the painter Pierre-Alexandre Wille , the son of the engraver Johann Georg Wille . From 1774/75 he concentrated on portraits. Early examples of this creative phase are an engraving based on a youthful self-portrait by J. B. M. Pierre and a portrait by Louis Leramberg based on a painting by N. S. A. Belle . This was followed in 1776 by a portrait of the painter Louis Galloche after Louis Tocqué . On March 30, 1776 he was admitted to the Paris Academy. In the same year he engraved Willes' portrait after a painting by Jean-Baptiste Greuze from 1763.
Müller had thus become a sought-after artist. Inquiries were not only received from Paris, he would also have had good career prospects in Kassel . However, since he felt obliged to his sovereign, who had sent him to Paris so that later Württemberg could benefit from his knowledge, he returned to Stuttgart in November 1776. There he received the titles of Premier Engraver de S. A. and Professor of Copper Engraving and began to teach at the Duke's Military Academy . He received a salary of 1000 guilders, but suffered from the fact that initially no second teacher for the beginners and also no trained copper printer could be hired, so that Müller had to take on these tasks in the service of the institution after negotiations with Carl Gottlieb Guttenberg , who should take over this position, had failed. The only work of art he created during this time was the etching Saint Jerome , which he made for Lavater. In 1777 he married the 17-year-old Charlotte Catharina Schnell, called Lotte, whose parents owned the Gasthof zum Adler in Stuttgart. The marriage resulted in a daughter; Mother and child were portrayed by Friedrich Tischbein in 1780 .
In 1779 he could have moved to Milan , where the Austrian government tried to summon him. He also received a request from Paris to return, but he continued to feel obliged to Carl Eugen and stayed in Stuttgart. His first student Johann Friedrich Leybold developed so well that he could leave him the beginner's lessons and also made him his deputy when, in the spring of 1781, accompanied by Eberhard Wächter from Mannheim , he traveled to Paris, where he did the first major one Wanted to have a plate printed that he had engraved in Stuttgart: Alexandre vainqueur de soi-même after a painting by Govaert Flinck . This work of art was in the Franziska von Hohenheim gallery . However, Müller's engraving was classified as rather weak.
Lotte Müller, who had accompanied her husband, died on July 7, 1781 in Paris of a fever. On January 15, 1782, Müller married Catharina Rosine Schott from Urach , the daughter of the local chief bailiff. In the same year he completed the engraving Loth and his daughters after Honthorst and in 1783 he began to engrave Tischbein's pastel painting, which he had created of his first wife and daughter. It is called La Tendre Mère . In 1782 Tischbein also painted Müller's second wife, with whom the engraver had four sons and two daughters who would reach adulthood; three other children died early.
In addition to his private work, Müller continued to lead the copper engraving school, which had eight students in 1781 and was already making profits. Müller's reputation was accordingly good, and in 1784 he was commissioned to paint a portrait of Louis XVI. to stab in Paris. The template should be an oil painting by Joseph Siffred Duplessis . For this purpose, Müller traveled again to Paris in the spring of 1785, accompanied by Johann Friedrich Cotta , and made a drawing, but asked for permission to make the copperplate at home in Stuttgart. In September 1785 he returned to Stuttgart via Flanders , Holland , Düsseldorf and Arolsen , where he worked on the engraving until 1790, which he was then able to sell to the Frauenholz art dealer. In 1793 she had the plate printed by the Parisian printer Ramboz in Nuremberg . Since the king had meanwhile been executed, it received the caption Luis seize. Il voulut le bonheur de sa nation et en devint la victime. The claim that Müller's record was later sold to France, where the guillotined king's head was put against that of Louis XVIII. exchanged is untrue according to the biographical article about Müller in the ADB.
In 1785 there was a copper engraving based on the self-portrait by Louise Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun , in 1787 a portrait of Moses Mendelssohn after Johann Christoph Frisch , and in 1788 a portrait of Moravian Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg after Anton Graff .
In 1793/94 he engraved the portrait of Friedrich Schiller based on a painting by Anton Graff from 1791 for the Frauenholz edition of German scholars in Nuremberg. Schiller assessed this copperplate very positively in a letter dated May 26, 1794 to Frauenholz: "The work turned out excellent, the engraving full of power and yet full of grace and fluidity."
After the death of Carl Eugen in autumn 1793, the High Charles School was dissolved by his successor Ludwig Eugen in spring 1794. Ludwig Eugen tried to keep the art academy and with it the copper engraving school alive, but when Friedrich Eugen came to power in May 1795 and soon after the losses from the First Coalition War had to be absorbed, this institution came to an end. Müller and his colleagues Necker , Leybold, Schlotterbeck , Abel , Ketterlinus and Morace protested against the decisions of the ducal rent chamber to cut their salaries and to close the copper engraving school, but in September 1796 they were announced that they would be suspended. A Pro Memoria published by Müller on January 9, 1797 had no effect. On June 15, 1797, his salary was finally withdrawn. An offer to work in Berlin had already reached him in 1796; At the time, however, Müller had rejected Hardenberg's request by the Privy Council of Massenbach, because he hoped the situation in his home country would change for the better. In autumn 1797 he was appointed to the Dresden Academy by the Saxon government , which the fifty-year-old also refused. Hereditary Prince Friedrich finally offered him a pension of 600 florins in January 1798 and promised him a re-employment, Müller was also able to continue to use the existing rooms and equipment in a private institute and to continue the copper printing business.
Between 1795 and 1797, Müller engraved Graff's self-portrait for Frauenholz, as well as the Battle of Bunkers-Hill after the painting by John Trumbull . It was published by AC Poggi in London in 1798 under the title The Battle at Bunkers-Hill, near Boston June 17th 1775 . He also created copper engravings with the portraits of Freiherr von Dalberg and the anatomist Justus Christian Loder . In 1801 he traveled to Leipzig with Cotta . Schiller, whom he visited on this trip, wrote to Goethe , who was just in the country: “He is a good man, but the man and his art explain one another in turn; he has all the careful, neat, petty and delicate features of his stylus ”. Müller exchanged gifts with Schiller; in return for a print from the Battle of Bunkers-Hill, he received a copy of Maria Stuart .
In the spring of 1802 he traveled again to Paris to look around for motifs for further engravings. He chose the Madonna della Sedia by Raphael from. While working on the accompanying drawing, he received an offer to become director of the k. k. To become an art academy in Vienna . As usual, Müller declined the appointment to a position outside of Stuttgart, but used the letter from Minister Cobenzl as leverage to establish a state drawing school in Stuttgart and to obtain a lifelong salary of 1200 florins for himself . The former failed, but the salary was granted to him. Thereupon he financed a study trip to Paris for his son Friedrich , his best student, in the same year .
In 1803 he created an engraving based on a drawing of an antique bust of Achilles by J. D. Schubert for Becker's Augusteum . In 1804 the engraving with the Madonna della Sedia came out in the Musée français. He received the title La vierge à la chaise . In the same year Müller became a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts and Mechanical Sciences in Berlin. In 1806 Johann Gotthard Müller's second son Karl died as a businessman's apprentice in Leipzig.
The son Friedrich, who returned from Paris in 1806, brought a drawing of Saint Cecilia with him to Domenichino , which Johann Gotthard Müller processed into a copperplate for the Musée français, where it was published in 1809. In 1810 he engraved a portrait of Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg after a painting by J. C. Rincklake, in 1813 together with his son Friedrich Müller a portrait of Jérôme Bonaparte after Kinson, in 1817 he finished work on a Saint Catherine after a picture that Leonardo had at the time Vinci , later attributed to Bernardino Luini . As the 30th and last record in 1819 he designated a Mater sancta after Lionello Spada .
In old age Johann Gotthard Müller still devoted himself to lithography . He first created a portrait of Queen Katharina , followed in 1822 by the portrait of King Wilhelm and in 1823 that of the king's second wife, Pauline .
His later years were rich in honors. In 1808 he received the Knight's Cross of Civil Merit , with the personal nobility ( ennoblement ) was associated. In 1812 he became an honorary member of the Imperial and Royal Academy of Art in Vienna, in 1814 an honorary member of the Royal Bavarian Academy of the Arts in Munich and the Academy in Copenhagen , in 1817 he was admitted to the art commission that chaired Dannecker, and in 1818 he received the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown .
Artists such as August Seyffer , Aloys Keßler , Joh. G. Raber, Johann Pleikard Bitthäuser , Joh. Conr. Left the copper engraving school, which moved to the old chancellery in the early 19th century . Ulmer, Karl Barth, Gottfried Rist a. a. emerged. Friedrich Müller, the son of Johann Gotthard Müller, was considered to be the greatest talent. He died in 1816. His son Eduard Christian (1798–1819), a talented painter, also died at a young age. Johann Gotthard Müller made an engraving based on a self-portrait of his son from 1817, which he distributed to friends of the family.
Johann Gotthard Müller in art
Johann Gotthard Müller has been portrayed on various occasions. A drawing by Parizeau from 1772 is entitled JG Müller dessinant à la campagne . Another painting in oil on copper by Kymli comes from the first Paris phase . The bust of Friedrich Tischbein from 1782 was engraved in copper by E. Morace around 1792. The same painting was signed by Friedrich Müller, who in 1810 depicted his father in another, separate drawing. A. Seubert and Berthold Pfeiffer , his great-grandson, celebrated him in sonnets . The Swiss painter Johann Heinrich Meyer created a portrait of Müller in 1814.
literature
- A. Andresen: Life and works of the two engravers Johann Gotthard von Müller and Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Müller. In: Robert Naumann (Hrsg.): Archives for the drawing arts with special reference to the art of engraving and woodcutting and their history , 11th year, 1st issue, Leipzig 1865, pp. 1–41.
- Berthold Pfeiffer: The engravers Johann Gotthard Müller and Friedrich Müller. In: Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte, Volume 4, 1881, pp. 161–179, 257–281.
- Christian Rümelin: Johann Gotthard Müller and the Stuttgart Copper Engraving Institute. Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-7995-7862-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Filderstadt
- ^ A. Andresen: Life and works of the two engravers Johann Gotthard von Müller and Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Müller . In: Robert Naumann (Hrsg.): Archive for the drawing arts with special reference to the art of engraving and woodcutting and their history , 11th year, 1st issue, Leipzig 1865, pp. 1–41, here p. 1
- ↑ Description of the work in: New library of the beautiful sciences and the freyen arts . Volume 15, Part 1, Leipzig 1773, p. 375
- ^ Christian Rümelin: Johann Gotthard Müller and the Stuttgart Copper Engraving Institute . Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-7995-7862-5 , p. 88
- ^ A b Christian Rümelin: Johann Gotthard Müller and the Stuttgarter Kupferstecherei-Institut . Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-7995-7862-5 , p. 45
- ↑ a b Digital catalog of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Andresen, 1865, p. 4
- ↑ cf. Picture and description of the copy of the Battle of Bunkers-Hill in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart ( Memento of the original from February 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ August Wintterlin: Müller, Johann Gotthard (von) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, pp. 610-616.
- ^ Meyer's portrait
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Müller, Johann Gotthard von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Müller, Johann Gotthard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German engraver |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 4, 1747 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bernhausen (Filderstadt) |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 14, 1830 |
| Place of death | Stuttgart |