Johann Joseph Schmeller

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Johann Joseph Schmeller (born July 12, 1794 or 1796 in Großobringen , † October 1, 1841 in Weimar ) was a German painter. He is considered to be Goethe's house painter .

Life

Johann Joseph Schmeller is the middle son of five children of Johann Michael Schmeller (* 1773 Großobringen, † 1850 ibid), servant in the Ettersburg forest administration, and his first wife Dorothea Eva Böhmel (1766-1814) from Buchfart . The father married Maria Dorothea Hofmann in 1815. From this marriage there is a son. The family lives in modest circumstances.

Johann Joseph attends the village school in Großobringen . Because of his good reading and writing skills, his father wanted to send him to grammar school in Weimar in 1807. During the Napoleonic Wars, Duke Carl August von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach issued a call for the formation of a volunteer corps, which Johann Joseph immediately joined. Here he also met Friedrich Jagemann, who later became director of the Free Drawing Institute , whose drawings provided the template for the uniforms.

The publisher Friedrich Justin Bertuch founded the drawing institute in 1775. Ferdinand Jagemann takes Schmeller into his drawing institute and supports him financially. After 1815 Schmeller initially worked as an assistant teacher. Jagemann suggests that he should study science at an academy. At the beginning of 1818, Schmeller contacted Goethe directly and asked him for financial support. He uses the construction of the Chinese pavilion next to the orangery as a test for Schmeller, who receives the order to restore the wall paintings by Adam Friedrich Oeser in the botanical greenhouses. Schmeller carried out the work successfully until mid-April 1820.

Ferdinand Jagemann died unexpectedly on January 9, 1820, and Schmeller lost his teacher, patron and friend. Nevertheless, in November he was sent to Antwerp to study art. The head of the academy is the history and portrait painter, etcher and lithographer Mathieu Ignace van Brée . During this time z. B. the oil paintings "Portrait of a Dutch Officer" and "Apostle Paul". Schmeller left Antwerp with a few copies of Dutch masters in oil and a number of chalk drawings based on depictions of antiquities and natural objects in his luggage and returned to Weimar on December 18, 1823. In a "report" after Christmas 1823 at Goethe's, Schmeller expressed his wish to return to work as a teacher at the drawing institute. As a teacher, he was assigned classes two and three, which in 1827 consisted of at least 50 boys and girls per class.

Duke Carl August had seen a painting by Albrecht Dürer in Merseburg : "Crucifixion of Christ" and asked Goethe to name a painter for a copy. In Goethe's opinion, the project is very costly, but the Duke insists on it. On May 8, 1827, Schmeller went to Merseburg to inspect the object of desire. Since there is no canvas, Schmeller uses the time for preparatory work and exercises on site in the manner of Albrecht Dürer and surprisingly returns to Weimar on May 19. On August 21, 1827 Schmeller announced completion and in September the painting came to one of the many Weimar art exhibitions in which he often participated with his own work. Schmeller was able to take on more and more orders for portraits and his chalk drawings were popular with the Weimar bourgeoisie.

With the death of the Grand Duke in 1828, Schmeller lost his greatest client. Well-known artists such as Friedrich Preller , Bernhard Neher, Gustav Jäger, Adolph Kaiser and many others participated in the completion of the new wing of the residential palace Weimar in 1835 and in its design. Schmeller was able to sell some of his paintings to the Grand Ducal Museum. The doctor and painter Carl Gustav Carus stayed in Weimar and it was probably through him that Schmeller was commissioned to work for the congress of the »Society of Natural Scientists and Doctors in Germany«. To this end, he traveled to Jena in 1836 . Here he proves his drawing skills and creates portraits e.g. B. by Christian Ehrenberg and Martin H. Lichtenstein, Heinrich Göppert, Adolph Otto, Johann v. Maedler and Joseph v. Littrow. Before that, in 1834, Schmeller restored two ceilings for Kromsdorf Castle .

Between 1837 and 1840 negotiations were conducted to continue the drawing institute as part of the teachers' seminar, as a result of which the funds were canceled. Schmeller was to become one of the teachers. Since the anniversary of the Reformation in 1817, Schmeller has donated some of his pictures to the home church in Großobringen and continues to paint Christian motifs.

Goethe dictates to the scribe John in his study . Oil painting by Johann Joseph Schmeller, 1834

plant

The well-known painting, on which Goethe dictates a text to his scribe John, is not, as one might think, in Goethe's house or the Goethe National Museum on the Weimar Frauenplan: It is in the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar . Since the Goethe house also underwent some redesigns that were carried out after his death, this picture has at the same time the value of a document of a contemporary interior view of the Goethe house. Goethe must have valued Schmeller as a painter and draftsman, because he was often portrayed through him. He even preferred him as a portrait painter to Peter von Cornelius , which was certainly not only due to their friendship, as he said in a letter to Sulpiz Boisserée . However, Goethe is not the only poet portrayed by Schmeller: around 150 (out of a total of around 180) portraits of poets are in the Goethe National Museum.

His collection gives an essential insight into the world of Weimar Classicism, especially the society of poets. There are portraits etc. from the immediate vicinity of Goethe's Schmeller. a. by Johann Peter Eckermann , Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer , Carl Friedrich Ernst Frommann . Further portraits of Schmeller show contemporaries such as B. by Franz Grillparzer , Adam Mickiewicz , Alexander von Humboldt or his brother Wilhelm von Humboldt , Christian Daniel Rauch , Sulpiz Boisserée and finally Jacques-Louis David .

progeny

On October 2, 1827, Johann Joseph Schmeller married Maria Christiane Henriette Wilhelmine, born on May 24, 1803 in Großvargula . She is the youngest daughter of the judicial officer Dr. Anton Apell (1756–1823) from Bad Berka and his wife Barbara Elisabeth Eckard (1768–1817). In 1832, the Schmeller couple bought a house on Unteren Graben in Weimar.

The marriage had four children:
Heinrich Wilhelm Julius (* / † 1829)
Carl Louis Wilhelm Robert (1831–1899), post office clerk
Theodor Louis Hermann (1832–1904), medic
Albine Henriette Melanie (1835–1910), married to Carl Franz Conrad (1839-1889)

Johann Joseph Schmeller died on September 30, 1841 in Weimar of an inflammation of the liver. He is buried on the eastern wall of the historic cemetery in Weimar. His wife Christiane lived in Gotha from around 1860. After her death, she is transferred to Weimar and buried next to her husband.

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Schmeller, Johann Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmeller, Johann Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1796
PLACE OF BIRTH Grossobringen
DATE OF DEATH October 1, 1841
Place of death Weimar