Johann Heinrich Hurter

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Johann Heinrich Hurter , since 1789 Freiherr von Hurter (born September 9, 1734 in Schaffhausen ; † September 2, 1799 in Düsseldorf , Duchy of Berg ), was a Swiss miniature and pastel painter as well as the inventor and founder of a factory for mathematical and physical instruments in London .

Life

Johann Heinrich Hurter was the eighth of ten children of the Schaffhausen tin caster Johann Jacob Hurter (1696–1752) and his wife Anna, née Meyer (1697–1755). He initially worked as a glazier, painter and gilder before he received training in enamel painting in Geneva , where he lived from 1758 to 1768, in the environment of Jean-Étienne Liotard , to which he then dedicated himself.

In 1758 he married Maria Elisabeth Catharina Heyn in Geneva. The couple had three children, including the later miniature painter Carl Rudolf Hurter (1768–1797) and the later landowner Johann Heinrich Jakob Emanuel von Hurter (1760–1819).

Karl Friedrich, Margrave of Baden , portrait miniature, enamel on copper, 51 mm, Karlsruhe 1786

Hurter stayed in Düsseldorf around 1763 and lived in Bern from 1768 to 1770 . From 1770 he specialized in the production of copies of paintings by old masters. Thanks to an improved manufacturing process, the quality of his work increased. In 1772 he bought himself into the painters' guild in The Hague . In 1774 he stayed in Amsterdam and in 1775 again in Düsseldorf.

In 1777 he moved to London, where he achieved his artistic breakthrough thanks to support from Lord Thomas Dartrey (1725–1803), for whom he made numerous enamel miniatures based on old family portraits. Dartrey gave Hurter access to aristocratic customers who were in great demand for his portraits. He soon received orders from the English royal family, politicians and the military. He presented his miniatures and pastels from 1779 to 1781 in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts .

From 1785 he made several trips through Europe. During these trips, miniatures and pastels were created for prominent personalities, such as the Margrave Karl Friedrich von Baden , for whom he not only worked as a painter but also as a court agent in London. Tsarina Katharina the great stood out among his clients . For them alone, Hurter is said to have made around forty copies of old masters and portraits since 1787.

Trade card from the Hurter and Haas company , British Museum : The card shows a collection of the company's instruments presented by Putti in the form of an allegorical scene above which the goddess Athena hovers as the patroness of art, science and handicrafts . In the foreground, a putto operates the "air pump" developed by Hurter and Haas , which Hurter entered in 1789 as a baron in Palatinate.

In 1786, Hurter's wife died in London. Around this time he shifted more and more to the development, manufacture and sale of air pumps, telescopes, sextants, theodolites, planetariums and barometers. The results of his instrument making was published in a text published around 1786 under the title Description of the newly invented Hudert's air pump in it: Description of a newly invented machine to explain the wonderful running and alternations and the resulting phenomena of the sun, the moon and the earth ... Also made by Mr. Hurter . In 1787 he founded a company for the construction of scientific devices in which Jakob Bernhard Haas , who had been an apprentice to the instrument maker Jesse Ramsden , worked. Haas became his partner around 1792 and the business henceforth traded under the name Hurter and Haas, Mathematical Philosophical, and Optical Instrument Makers, London . It existed until 1795 and was located at № 53 Great Marlborough Street. Scientists such as Horace-Bénédict de Saussure , Johann Georg Tralles and Alexander von Humboldt used equipment from the Hurter and Haas company . In Bern she delivered various astronomical devices to the high school, which later became the University of Bern . Hurters miniature painting declined more and more since 1786 and came to a complete standstill in 1790.

On July 19, 1789, Karl Theodor von der Pfalz raised him to the baron of the Electoral Palatinate Bavarian Barons “because of his artificially manufactured en émaille paintings and newly invented air pump” . Correspondence with his friend, the scholar and advisor Johannes Müller , shows that Hurter tried in vain in 1789 to be appointed ambassador to the Electorate of Mainz for the Republic of the Seven United Provinces and to come to The Hague as such.

In 1790 he married Magdalena Crommelyn (Crommelin) from Rotterdam, the wealthy widow of the natural scientist Johannes Nicolaus Sebastianus Allamand, who died in 1787, in Leiden . After withdrawing from the London business, whose valuables were sold to Christie's on December 23, 1795 , he settled in Düsseldorf- Pempelfort , privatized and tried to acquire a Rhenish knight's seat. A few years later he died there at the age of almost 65.

literature

Web links

Commons : Johann Heinrich Hurter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Description of an improved air pump  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See also: John Cuthbertson: Description of an improved air pump . Mannheim 1788, p. 13 ( digitized version )
  2. ↑ See also: Anonymus: Description of a new travel barometer from the invention of Mr. JH Hurter. In: Magazine for the latest in physics and natural history , 1789, Volume 5, Item 4, p. 86 ( Google Books )
  3. ^ Andor Trierenberg: The court and university mechanics in Württemberg in the early 19th century . Dissertation University of Stuttgart, 2013, p. 93 f. ( PDF )
  4. ^ Carola Dahlke: Mercury on the move. About the travel barometer in the second age of discovery. In: Kultur & Technik , 4/2017, p. 45 ( PDF )
  5. ↑ Hurter & Haas , data sheet in the portal britishmuseum.org ( British Museum ), accessed on July 24, 2020
  6. ↑ Gerhard Kortum : Humboldt the seafarer and his marine chronometer. A contribution to the history of nautical and marine science. In: International Journal for Humboldt Studies , 3 (2001), p. 53 ( PDF )
  7. ↑ Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the baronial houses. Justus Perthes, Volume 27, Gotha 1877, p. 394 ( digitized version )
  8. ↑ Nobility Lexicon. CA Starke, Limburg an der Lahn 1984, Volume V, p. 431
personal data
SURNAME Hurter, Johann Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hurter, Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss miniature and pastel painter as well as inventor and founder of a manufactory for mathematical and physical instruments
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1734
PLACE OF BIRTH Schaffhausen , city-state of Schaffhausen
DATE OF DEATH September 2, 1799
Place of death Düsseldorf , Duchy of Berg