Johann Jakob Röttinger

Paul window in Wädenswil, 1862

Johann Jakob Röttinger (born March 24, 1817 in Nuremberg ; † January 29, 1877 in Zurich ) was a Swiss glass painter who established himself in Zurich in 1848 when he opened his own workshop.

life and work

Johann Jakob Röttinger came from a family of craftsmen Nuremberg that the profession, the Nadler had prescribed. From 1830 he attended the Royal School of Applied Arts in Nuremberg, which was then headed by the copper engraver Albert Reindel (1784-1853) . The young artist completed an apprenticeship as a glass painter with the well-known glass and porcelain painter Franz Joseph Sauterfolk (1793–1843) from Weingarten . The years of his apprenticeship enabled him to work on renowned projects, in particular the coats of arms for the Thurn und Taxis crypt chapel in Regensburg and in Lichtenstein Castle in Württemberg .

In 1844 Röttinger moved his place of residence and work to Zurich in order to start his career with the glass painter Johann Andreas Hirnschrot (1799–1845), who was also from Nuremberg . After his early death, the opportunity arose to take over the Zurich workshop and to establish himself as an independent glass painter in 1848. His business acumen and professional way of working, the good network with Zurich scientists such as Johann Rudolf Rahn , Ferdinand Keller and, last but not least, the support of his wife Verena Fehr, who comes from Ossingen ZH , helped the immigrant to succeed.

Röttinger received large orders in city churches - the Zurich Grossmünster (based on designs by Georg Konrad Kellner ), the Basel Minster , the St. Gallen Church of St. Laurence , the City Church of Glarus , the Reformed City Church of Solothurn - and in numerous country churches - Unterägeri ZG , Leuggern AG , Kirchdorf AG , Wädenswil ZH , Bünzen AG , Nottwil LU , Glis VS u. v. a.

Stained glass window from 1867 in the reformed church in Baar ZG

The coat of arms cycles created by Röttinger in the town hall of Rapperswil SG , in the cemetery chapel Stand NW and for the former cemetery chapel in Schwyz bear witness to the resumption of traditional Swiss custom, the creation of coats of arms. The graphic inventory of medieval glass paintings in former Swiss monastery churches, Königsfelden AG and Kappel am Albis ZH , the monastery church Hauterive FR and the church Frauenfeld Oberkirch identify the glass painter as an early monument conservator and restorer. The training of numerous young glass painters from Switzerland and Germany, some of whom later opened their own studios, business connections in German and French Switzerland, Alsace and for the purchase of glass to Paris and Poland as well as the installation of panes supplied from England for an Anglican Church in Valais make the workshop under Johann Jakob Röttinger appear as a crystallization point for cultural transfer and as the cradle of an entire generation of glass painters.

Röttinger's stained glass was committed to the zeitgeist, in line with historicism and late Nazarene painting . The often striking effect of his works is underlined by strong color contrasts, the latter probably a legacy of the Nuremberg education. He took further ideas from the Mariahilfkirche in Munich, a figurehead of glass painting in southern Germany at the time.

Johann Jakob Röttinger died in the middle of working life in 1877, leaving behind seven children; the youngest two male descendants were still required to attend school at that time. The year of death Verena Röttingers - - the reopening of the studio by his sons despite an increasingly temporarily necessary sale of the company, the widow namely the education of their children and the preservation of the property requirements which in 1887 focused targeted to the future, Jacob Georg Röttinger ( 1862–1913) and Heinrich Röttinger (1866–1948) made it possible.

The estate of the Röttinger glass painting studio has been kept in the Zurich Central Library since 2008 .

literature

Heinrich Appenzeller: Röttinger, Johann Jakob . In: Carl Brun: Schweizerisches Künstler-Lexikon , Volume 2, Frauenfeld 1908, p. 661 ( digitized version ).
Röttinger, Johann Jakob . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 28 : Ramsden-Rosa . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1934, p. 508-509 .
Elgin Vaassen: Pictures on Glass. Glass painting between 1780 and 1870 . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-422-06206-8 , p. 48f.
Elgin Vaassen: Röttinger, Johann Jakob . In: Biographical Lexicon of Swiss Art , ed. from the Swiss Institute for Art Research, Volume 2, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-85823-673-X , p. 887.
Eva-Maria Scheiwiller-Lorber: "... according to the rules and laws of aesthetics and Christian art [...]". Johann Jakob Röttinger: A glass painter pioneer in the service of historicism . Peter Lang, Bern a. a. 2014, ISBN 978-3-0343-1518-0 (dissertation University of Zurich 2012).
Eva-Maria Scheiwiller-Lorber: "The Teaching Christ". Study of a central motif in the sacred work of the glass painter Johann Jakob Röttinger (1817–1877) . In: Journal for Swiss Archeology and Art History Volume 71, 2014, Issue 4, pp. 269–286 ( digitized version ).
Eva-Maria Scheiwiller-Lorber: Röttinger, Johann Jakob . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 99, de Gruyter, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-023265-3 , p. 241.

Web links

Commons : Johann Jakob Röttinger - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Ulrich Gerster: The church windows of the Grossmünster Zurich. Augusto Giacometti - Sigmar Polke , GSK, Bern 2012, ISBN 978-3-03797-071-3 ; Regine Abegg, Christine Barraud Wiener, Karl Grunder: The Art Monuments of the Canton of Zurich , New Edition Volume III.I., The City of Zurich III.I. Old town on the right of the Limmat. Sacred buildings , GSK, Bern 2007.
↑ Jürg Davatz: The City Church of Glarus (1861–1999). A major work by Ferdinand Stadler and historicism in Switzerland , ed. by the municipality of Glarus and the Education Directorate of the Canton of Glarus, Glarus 2000.
↑ Jürg Andrea Bossardt, Urs N. Kaufmann: The Roman Catholic. Parish Church of St. Peter and Paul Leuggern , GSK, Bern 2012.
↑ Peter Ziegler: Reformed Church Wädenswil , ed. vd Evangelical Reformed Church Wädenswil, Wädenswil 2005.
^ The estate of the Röttinger glass painting studio in the Zurich Central Library .

personal data
SURNAME	Röttinger, Johann Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss glass painter
DATE OF BIRTH	March 24, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH	Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH	January 29, 1877
Place of death	Zurich

[1] Ulrich Gerster: The church windows of the Grossmünster Zurich. Augusto Giacometti - Sigmar Polke , GSK, Bern 2012, ISBN 978-3-03797-071-3 ; Regine Abegg, Christine Barraud Wiener, Karl Grunder: The Art Monuments of the Canton of Zurich , New Edition Volume III.I., The City of Zurich III.I. Old town on the right of the Limmat. Sacred buildings , GSK, Bern 2007.

[2] Jürg Davatz: The City Church of Glarus (1861–1999). A major work by Ferdinand Stadler and historicism in Switzerland , ed. by the municipality of Glarus and the Education Directorate of the Canton of Glarus, Glarus 2000.

[3] Jürg Andrea Bossardt, Urs N. Kaufmann: The Roman Catholic. Parish Church of St. Peter and Paul Leuggern , GSK, Bern 2012.

[4] Peter Ziegler: Reformed Church Wädenswil , ed. vd Evangelical Reformed Church Wädenswil, Wädenswil 2005.

[5] The estate of the Röttinger glass painting studio in the Zurich Central Library .