Johann Valentin Prehn

Johann Valentin Prehn (* 1749 in Frankfurt am Main ; † 1821 there ) was a Frankfurt confectioner and art collector.

Pastry chef and collector

Prehn learned the trade of confectioner from his father Zacharias Ludwig Prehn and married Margaretha Rosina Müller from Landau in the Palatinate in 1776 at the age of 27 . His house and business premises were in a prime location on the Zeil (Lit. D 202). The production of figurative centerpieces belonged to the upscale confectionery trade; On the occasion of the imperial coronation of Emperor Franz II in Frankfurt, Prehn created an "allegorical concept" of his own invention from "solid colored massa" which could be admired in his shop. As a master confectioner, Prehn had a certain manual dexterity and also tried his hand at the production of art objects, figurative representations made of colored wax, which he presented in medallion frames and boxes.

The quality of his products must have given him such a good reputation and income that he could afford to buy a large art collection. His collection could be counted as one of the typical universal collections owned by many wealthy patricians, bankers, merchants and members of the educated elite in Frankfurt, as it contained not only works of art, but also natural objects, ethnological objects, curiosities and a corresponding library. But the case is different with Prehn. On the one hand, he was a confectioner in the craftsman's class, and on the other hand, his collection had something special: Prehn had put together over 800 small-format paintings in 32 wooden folding boxes, a miniature picture gallery, as it were. There has probably not been a comparable collection in Germany; For this reason alone, it is an important testimony to the history of collections and tastes. But Prehn's "Small Cabinet" also contains important paintings; the most famous is the " little paradise garden " created around 1410/20 by an Upper Rhine master .

The painting cabinet

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The "Prehnische Gemäldecabinet", as the heirs wanted to know, consists of originals, copies and fragments by artists from the 15th to 19th centuries. The focus is on German, Dutch and Flemish painters of the Renaissance and Baroque as well as the works of contemporary artists from the region, including numerous well-known names such as Cranach and Holbein , Breughel and Bril , Jan van Goyen and Ostade , Tizian and Carracci , Callot and Fragonard , Merian and Flegel . However, some of the attributions at that time did not hold up. Prehn had a particular preference for landscapes, sacred history paintings, portraits and genre pieces. Occasionally a tendency to curiosities, to amusing, bizarre and erotic subjects becomes noticeable, including numerous mythological scenes and "an object in love" which - as was common in the 17th century - was shamefully hidden behind a curtain. Prehn also occasionally added fragments of damaged or destroyed paintings with sometimes surprising details to his cabinet, including a fragment by the important Dutch painter Geertgen tot Sint Jans .

Creation and storage of the collection

We know just as little about the development of his art collection as we do about Prehn's life. When did he start collecting? Has he already inherited works of art from his father? Where did he buy? Who advised him? No written testimony from his hand has survived. We must therefore primarily stick to a printed catalog and a watercolor by Carl Morgenstern , which were created in 1829 on the occasion of the auction of the collection by Prehn's son Ernst Friedrich Carl. The catalog lists the contents of the 32 boxes, but gives no information about the distribution of the images. Morgenstern's watercolor shows the main room of the collection; On the walls and around the low cupboards that house the miniature cabinet hang around a hundred paintings. Prehn certainly bought from the art dealers at the Frankfurter Messe and from the numerous auctions taking place in Frankfurt. He will have received support in the selection, purchase and hanging of the paintings from his neighbors, the painters and restorers Johann Ludwig Ernst and Johann Friedrich Morgenstern, with whom he was on friendly terms.

The foundation of the collection

The son Ernst Friedrich Carl Prehn withdrew the "Small Cabinet" from the auction in 1829, obviously because he wanted it to be preserved in the city as a legacy from his father. A donation to the Städel'sche Kunstinstitut failed in 1838 because the administration did not want to take over the cabinet as a whole because of the uneven quality of the pictures. On the other hand, the city of Frankfurt accepted the donation in 1839 and transferred the cabinet to the city library at the Schöne Aussicht, where it could be viewed since 1842. The city administrator Johann David Passavant completely rearranged the paintings in the cabinet according to national schools on twelve large and eight small blackboards and compiled a catalog for the collection. Together with other paintings from the municipal art collection, Prehn's cabinet was exhibited in the rooms of the Saalhof from 1867 before it came into the possession of the Historisches Museum Frankfurt in 1878 , where it was presented in the rooms of the building shared with the city archive. It was not until 1988 that the museum's painting curator, Kurt Wettengl, undertook a reconstruction based on the auction catalog from 1829 and rearranged the paintings in 32 boxes. Since 2012 the “Small Cabinet” has been on display in the permanent exhibition “Frankfurt Collectors and Donors” at the Frankfurt Historical Museum .

literature

• Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff / Kurt Wettengl, Civil Collections in Frankfurt 1700-1830 , Frankfurt 1988.
• Julia Ellinghaus / Wolfgang Cillessen, Picture Academy. The painting cabinet of the master confectioner Johann Valentin Prehn (1749–1821) . In: Frankfurt collectors and donors. Writings Historisches Museum Frankfurt , Volume 32, Frankfurt 2012, pp. 73–93.

Web links

• Prehn, Johann Valentin. Hessian biography. (As of May 9, 2020). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
• Prehn, Johann Valentin in the Frankfurt Personal Lexicon