Johann Velten

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Self-portrait, excerpt from a prison scene , 1849, oil on canvas, 78 × 93 cm, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier.
Youth portrait of the later Privy Admiralty Councilor PMJ Coupette, 1845, oil painting, 32 × 29 cm. Photo (anonymous) according to the exhibition catalog Trier 100 years ago , 1929

Johann (also Jean) Velten (born January 15, 1807 in Graach ; † December 30, 1883 ibid) was a German painter from the Düsseldorf School ; he is not identical with the lithographer, court art dealer and publisher Johann Velten in Karlsruhe.

origin

Johann Velten, who also had his first name in the French form "Jean", came from an old and well-established family in the wine town of Graach on the Mosel , but was born in a socially modest family. His father of the same name, Johann Velten, was a vineyard worker and together with his wife Maria Catharina born. Kees to feed a total of eight children.

education

The port of Düsseldorf , 1832

The painter's training course as well as his artistic work can only be sketched in gaps. In the rural environment, however, his talent must have been noticed early on, because he found a patron in the Trier merchant and large landowner Matthias Joseph Hayn , who was deeply committed to his support. During the Napoleonic era, in the course of secularization, Hayn had acquired a large number of expropriated church property, including the "Martinshof" in Graach, which had belonged to the St. Martin Abbey in Trier for centuries and which was henceforth named "Josephshof" and which he developed into a model winery has been. The contact between Hayn and his protégé Velten is likely to have come about through this point of reference in Graach. It fell at the same time when Hayn gave the Trier painter Johann Anton Ramboux financial support through a lucrative commission for frescoes.

After an unknown basic training (private tuition? Decoration or church painting apprenticeship?) Velten began in 1830 to study at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf , the most important painting school in Prussia at the time . His late entry age of 23 is noticeable because the academy's three-tier system, from elementary through preparatory class to the actual painting class (“practicing students”), could be started from the age of twelve. According to family tradition, Velten's studies lasted until 1838, but interrupted by longer stays in Belgium (especially Liège) between 1832 and 1836. The only named teacher of Veltens is Heinrich Christoph Kolbe's student lists for 1830/31 in the portrait subject of Heinrich Christoph Kolbe . Kolbe represented a cool, classicistic portrait style “of extremely plastic precision”, which was characterized by long stays in Paris, which was hostile within the academy and in 1832 led to its suppression. However, this unpretentious portrait art of his teacher had a lasting influence on Velten. Also in 1832, when his early painting The Düsseldorf Harbor was created, Velten also left the academy and turned to neighboring Liège. A portrait of a man recently acquired from the Belgian art trade, which Velten painted in 1836 and inscribed in French, underlines the relevant family information. However, there is no news of his continuing education there. The Académie royale des beaux-arts de Liège, which until its reorganization in 1837 only functioned as a drawing school, is likely to be eliminated. It has not yet been clarified whether Velten is identical with a portrait painter MJ Velten in Brussels “with exhibitions still in 1845” or with a “younger artist of this name as a portrait painter” who worked there.

Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman, 1836, oil on canvas, 61.5 × 53.5 cm, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier

Portraitist in the Moselle region

Based on the works that can still be grasped today, it can be reconstructed that Velten returned to his native Moselle region after completing his studies and mainly worked there as a portraitist. In the hierarchy of genres conveyed by the art academies, portrait painting ranked well below the “supreme discipline” of history painting . But on the art market, which was regulated by the public's interest, the greatest number of commissions fell into the portrait field. The new stratum of an educated and wealthy middle class became the portrait painters' main clients. Like Louis Krevel , who was roughly the same age and who played a dominant role as portrait painter for the large entrepreneurial families on the Saar and Moselle in the 1840s, Velten also found his clientele among the wealthy bourgeoisie in the region. His portraits were in demand although, or precisely because, even after his studies with Kolbe, he avoided romantic idealizations and worked with "unvarnished" characterization in the style of the emerging new realism.

A prison scene , 1849, oil on canvas, 78 × 93 cm, City Museum Simeonstift Trier

A prison scene

Velten's most famous work fell out of the series of bourgeois representational portraits: his prison scene from 1849 . The painting shows the painter in a long dressing gown at the far left edge of the picture. To the right, his twelve fellow inmates, who were meticulously portrayed by him and also known by name, are grouped around a long table. They smoke and drink, one of them reads a newspaper article. The head of the newspaper is clearly recognizable: it is the opposition, socialist-democratic “Trier'sche Zeitung”, which was suppressed a little later (1850). The apparent Stammtisch idyll turns out to be a mockery. Like his colleagues, Velten had been a prisoner on remand under the strict Prussian conditions, including forced labor and solitary confinement, in Trier prison from the end of November 1848. He had been accused of subversive activities. He is said to have led an armed procession from Graach to Bernkastel, where on November 26, 1848, he participated in a revolt of revolting farmers, artisans and winemakers. The uprising had been put down with advancing troops from Trier and Bernkastel had been placed under occupation. Velten was finally acquitted in the main hearing before the Assisenhof in Trier at the beginning of June 1849. Once again at large he settled accounts with the Prussian authorities, painting and also verbally with a picture interpretation, which he published parodistically in the Trier'sche Zeitung. Speaking of himself in the third person, he wrote in bold: "When Velten had recovered from the convulsive laugh at his arrest, he remembered his fine art in the prison in Trier, set up the easel, rubbed the colors and painted ... a prison scene." The painting is one of the rare pictorial documents of the democratic revolution of 1848/49 in the Moselle region; it has been exhibited and illustrated many times, and "from Moscow" has also been asked to buy it.

Gravestone of the painter Johann Velten with a statue of Johannes and a palette in the vine wreath in the Graach cemetery
Gravestone of the painter Johann Velten (detail): palette in the vine wreath

Veltens late phase

About six months after his release from prison, Velten married Anna Gertrud Beucher, who was twenty years his junior, Anna Gertrud Beucher in Graach on January 15, 1850 (job description "painter"). The couple, to whom a total of five children were born between 1850 and 1864, now apparently lived in secure financial circumstances, as can be seen from costly trips abroad to the USA (around 1865) and Spain. Velten continued to work as a portraitist, but had also included landscapes and church painting in his areas of work. However, the latest known work by Velten, a portrait of his daughter Klara, dates from 1868; there is no evidence of his artistic activity for the last quarter of his life. It remains to be seen whether this circumstance is due to the division of inheritance and the migration of considerable complexes of works abroad or whether the painter actually put the brush down. Velten died at the age of 76 and was buried in the cemetery next to the Graach parish church of St. Simon and Juda. His grave monument with a crowning statue of John and a name cartouche in the form of a palette with brushes has been preserved to this day.

Works

The works listed below are exclusively oil paintings.

  • 1822 (approximately) self-portrait, family property
  • 1826 (approximately) self-portrait, family property
  • 1832 The Düsseldorf harbor , Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne, inv. No. WRM 2469
  • 1836 Portrait of an unknown gentleman, City Museum Simeonstift Trier, Inv. No. III.1440
  • 1841 Portrait of Joseph Ludwig Lintz, head forester in Trier, private collection (1929)
  • 1841 portrait of his wife Maria Charlotte Lintz geb. Krämer, private property
  • 1841 Portrait of the engineer Louis Lintz, son of the aforementioned Lintz couple, active for the Cockerill works in Seraing near Liège (including locomotive construction), possibly a contact point for Velten, private property
  • 1841 Portrait of the businessman Fritz Gustav Lintz, son of the aforementioned Lintz couple, private property
  • 1841 Portrait of Maria Sophie Lintz, daughter of the aforementioned Lintz couple, private property
  • 1845 Portrait of the Admiralty Councilor Paulin Matthias Joseph Coupette from Trier, private collection (1929)
  • 1847 Full portrait of the night watchman "Harry" from Zeltingen, municipality of Zeltingen-Rachtig
  • 1849 Portrait of Franziska Coupette, b. Lintz, private collection (1929)
  • 1849 Portrait of Adolph Lintz, son of the married couple Joseph Ludwig Lintz, private property
  • 1849 Portrait of Henriette von Arend geb. Lintz, private property
  • 1854 Portrait of Karl Hubert Eskens, director of the rural poor house in Trier, private property (1929)
  • 1856 Portrait of Joseph Hauth, owner of the winery in Bernkastel-Kues, private property
  • 1856 portrait of Elisabeth Hauth born. Lorenz, private property
  • undated portrait of Dorothea Böcking geb. Nießen, private property
  • undated Portrait of Jacob Cetto, merchant in Bernkastel-Kues, private collection
  • undated Portrait of Anton Cetto, Mayor of Bernkastel-Kues, private collection
  • undated Portrait of Adolph Huesgen, winery owner in Enkirch, private collection
  • 1858 landscape views (Eifel, Hunsrück, Moselle, Rhine), oil paintings on canvas as wall coverings in the Kayser house, Moselstrasse 10, Traben-Trarbach, private property
  • 1859 Cochem, bank view with castle ruins, overhead door, private property
  • 1861 Altar leaves of the Assumption of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus for the side altars of the parish church of St. Remigius in Kröv
  • 1861 Portrait of Michael Pauly, head of office in Graach, private property
  • 1868 Portrait of his daughter Clara Velten, private property

Insofar as lithographs are also attributed to Johann Velten, it is obviously a matter of confusion with handwritten or workshop work by the lithographer Johann Velten in Karlsruhe, who ran a "lithographic-artistic institute" there from 1820 at the latest, also as a court art dealer and publisher for well-known artists was active. He gave u. a. from 1821 the collection Strange Buildings of the German Middle Ages with lithographs by Domenico Quaglio .

Exhibitions

A solo exhibition has not yet been dedicated to Johann Velten.

Exhibition participation:

  • 1832 Düsseldorf, July: The Rheinwerft in Düsseldorf (The Düsseldorf Harbor) .
  • 1854 Trier, August and September. "Art and trade exhibition for the government districts of Aachen, Coblenz and Trier, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Principality of Birkenfeld": Three oil paintings by Veltens (without further details).
  • 1929 Trier, July 6th to 14th. Portraits exhibition Trier 100 years ago (like Lit. Verz.): Six portraits and “A prison scene”.
  • 1979 Düsseldorf / Darmstadt, May to September. Exhibition: Die Düsseldorfer Malerschule (like lit. Verz.): Der Düsseldorfer Hafen, 1832.
  • 1981 Berlin, August to November: Prussia - Attempt to take stock: “A prison scene”, here referred to as: The 48 revolutionaries after their capture by Prussian troops.
  • 1984 Trier, March to September: Electors and citizens - Exhibition for the 2000 year celebration of the city of Trier in the City Museum Simeonstift Trier: “A prison scene”.
  • 1988/89 Munich, December to February: Art of the Biedermeier period 1815-1835: The Düsseldorf harbor.
  • 1989 Oberhausen, June to August. Trier - culture and economy from four centuries - exhibition in the Städtische Galerie Schloss Oberhausen: "A prison scene", as before.
  • 1998/99 Trier, October to April. Exhibition: The worst point in the province - Democratic Revolution 1848/49 in Trier and the surrounding area: "A prison scene".
  • from 2007 Trier, permanent exhibition city history in the city museum Simeonstift Trier: "A prison scene".

literature

  • Johann Velten: A prison scene. In: Amphitheater for entertainment, art and criticism, No. 25 - supplement to the Trier'schen Zeitung 1849.
  • Hans Lückger: The painters. In: Catalog of the "Portraits Exhibition Trier 100 Years Ago", organized by the Trier branch of the West German Society for Family Studies in conjunction with the Moselle Museum Trier, Trier 1929, pp. 30f., 80 and cat. Nos. 15, 29, 83 , 97, 98b, 99.
  • Walter Dieck: Johann Velten - a Moselle painter of the Biedermeier period. In: The Middle Moselle. Rheinischer Verein für Denkmalpflege und Heimatschutz, born in 1957, Neuss 1957, pp. 101–108.
  • Rolf Andree: The Düsseldorf School of Painting. Catalog of the exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, May 13 to July 8, 1979; Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt July 22 to September 9, 1979, Düsseldorf 1979, p. 494f.
  • Helmut Börsch-Supan: Blossoming of landscape painting in the Rhineland. In: Eduard Trier / Willy Weyres (Ed.): Art of the 19th Century in the Rhineland, Volume 3, Düsseldorf 1979, pp. 246f., 411.
  • Wolfgang Hütt: Die Düsseldorfer Malerschule 1819-1869, Leipzig 1984, S. 53f.
  • Bernd Brauksiepe, Anton Neugebauer: Artist Lexicon Rhineland-Palatinate, Mainz 1986, p. 257f.
  • Georg Himmelträger (Hrsg.): Exhibition catalog: Art of the Biedermeier 1815-1835 - Architecture - Painting - Sculpture - Crafts - Music - Poetry and fashion, 2nd edition Munich 1989, pp. 124, 220, 306.
  • Bettina Simmich: Aspects of events in Trier at the time of Johann Anton Ramboux (1790-1866) based on paintings from the Simeonstift Municipal Museum. In: Johann Anton Ramboux - Views of Trier, Trier 1991, pp. 28–46.
  • Christl Lehnert-Leven: A late Biedermeier portrait from Trier - Maria Margaretha Goedecke, painted in 1847 by Lambert Sachs from Mannheim. In: New Trierisches Jahrbuch 1993, pp. 113–130.
  • Joachim Grossmann: Artists, court and bourgeoisie - life and work of painters in Prussia 1786-1850, Berlin 1994, (ARTEfact, vol. 9), p. 48f.
  • Jean-Paul Depaire: Académie royale des beaux-arts de Liège 1775-1995 - 220 ans d'histoire. Liège, Édition Yellow Now, 1995, pp. 59-70.
  • Gabriele Clemens: The "Moselle King" Matthias Josef Hayn. A commercial middle class career in the Napoleonic era. In: Friedhelm Burgard (Ed.): Liber amicorum necnon amicarum for Alfred Heit: Contributions to medieval history and historical regional studies, Trier 1996, pp. 129–141.
  • Elisabeth Dühr: A melancholy swan song for the revolution - Johann Velten's “prison scene” from 1849. In: Elisabeth Dühr (Ed.): “The worst point in the province” - Democratic revolution 1848/49 in Trier and the surrounding area. Catalog manual, Trier 1998, pp. 598–604.
  • Carsten Roth: Velten, Johann (Jean). In: Hans Paffrath (Ed.): Lexicon of the Düsseldorfer Malerschule 1819–1918. Volume 3: Nabert-Zwecker. Published by the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf in the Ehrenhof and by the Paffrath Gallery. Bruckmann, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-7654-3011-0 , p. 371f.
  • Eva Elisabetha Schmidt: Louis Krevel - life and work on the Saar and Moselle. In: Christof Trepesch (ed.): Culture of the Biedermeier - The painter Louis Krevel, Worms, 2001, pp. 1–12.
  • Artur Weber: Graach in space and time - historical-geographical consideration of a Moselle village (= series Ortschroniken des Trier Land , Volume 47), Bernkastel-Kues 2006, pp. 736–738.
  • Elisabeth Dühr, Frank G. Hirschmann, Christl Lehnert-Leven (eds.): City history in the city museum - companion volume to the new city history exhibition in the city museum Simeonstift Trier, Trier 2007, p. 66f.
  • Heinz H. Grundhöfer: The Graacher painter Johann Velten on the 200th birthday. In: District yearbook Bernkastel-Wittlich, year 2007, pp. 326–330.
  • General Artist Lexicon - Bibliographical Index A – Z, Volume 12, Munich-Leipzig 2009, p. 206.
  • Lisa Hackmann: Kolbe, Heinrich Christoph. In: France Nerlich and Bénédicte Savoy (eds.): Paris apprenticeship years. A lexicon for training German painters in the French capital. Volume 1: 1793-1843, Berlin / Boston 2013, pp. 149–152.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Diocesan Archives Trier, Dept. 72, 258 No. 3 - Church Book St. Simon and Juda, Graach, vol. 3, p. 92 (baptisms 1807); Graach family book, compiled by Otto Münster, Bullay, 1992, no. 1367, 1368. The baptismal register shows birth and baptism as January 16, 1807; However, on Velten's tombstone in Graach, January 15, 1807 is given as the date of birth, as is usually the case in literature.
  2. ↑ Heinz H. Grundhöfer: For the Graacher painter Johann Velten on his 200th birthday, like lit. Verz. Here you can find the most detailed data on the painter's biography and work.
  3. ^ Information from the Düsseldorf Art Academy of August 21, 2013; Carsten Roth: Velten Johann (Jean), like lit.
  4. ↑ Karl Koetschau (ed.): Rheinische Malerei der Biedermeierzeit, Düsseldorf 1926, p. 35 and ill. P. 186f., 206f.
  5. ↑ The painting, oil / canvas, 61.5 × 53.5 cm, signed and dated on the reverse: «J. Velten p. // de Graach sur la Moselle // September 18, 36 », City Museum Simeonstift Trier, Inv. No. III 1440.
  6. ↑ Georg Kasper Nagler: New general artist lexicon, 2nd ed. 22nd volume, Linz 1913, p. 343; Paul Piron: Dictionnaire des artistes plasticiens de Belgique des XIXe et XXe siècles. Ohain-Lasne 2003, Vol. 2, p. 708; Emmanuel Bénézit : Dictionary of Artists, Paris 2006, vol. 14, p. 122.
  7. ↑ The painting, oil / canvas, 78 × 93 cm, signed and dated lower left: "Velten déterminé politique 1849", Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, inv. No. III 72.
  8. ^ Johann Velten: A prison scene, like lit. Verz., First paragraph.
  9. ↑ In the 1930s, the Marx-Lenin Institute in Moscow applied for the purchase. Walter Dieck said: Moscow wanted to acquire a picture by a Trier painter. In: Trierischer Volksfreund from May 16, 1950.
  10. ↑ Diocese archive Trier, as above, Vol. 3, p. 424 (Marriage); Graach family book, as above, no.1368.
  11. ↑ Grundhöfer, p. 327, with a portrait photo of the Velten couple, taken around 1865 in Arlington, Massachusetts, USA.
  12. ↑ The works from 1822 and 1826 so far only mentioned by Grundhöfer.
  13. ↑ The portraits of the married couple Lintz and their son Louis Lintz according to the listing in Lückger, like Lit. Verz .: No. 97, 83, 98 b, each signed and dated “J. Velten 1841. "
  14. ↑ Against the attribution of the large portrait Louis Lintz listed under portrait catalog 1929, no.98a (knee with the attribute of a moving steam locomotive on the right edge of the picture, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, inv.no.III 661) to Velten, not only the stylistic speaks Different painting style, but also the reverse stamp of a canvas supplier from Vienna, where Louis Lintz stayed for a long time on business (construction of the Semmering Railway).
  15. ^ The children Fritz Gustav and Maria Sophie Lintz according to the list at Grundhöfer.
  16. ↑ Portrait catalog 1929, No. 15: The painting signed and dated: "peint par Jean Velten 1845".
  17. ↑ Portrait catalog 1929, No. 99: The painting is monogrammed and dated: JV1849.
  18. ↑ Adolph Lintz and Henriette von Arend geb. Lintz according to the information from Grundhöfer.
  19. ↑ Portrait catalog 1929, No. 29, signed and dated: "Velten 1854".
  20. ↑ The portraits of the Hauth couple and the three undated portraits listed below based on the information provided by Grundhöfer.
  21. ↑ Walter Dieck, like Lit. Verz., Pp. 103,104 with illustration.
  22. ↑ Gerda Knorrn-Belitz: Family-owned for 200 years. In: Trierischer Volksfreund from August 1, 2004; Hans Vogts: The art monuments of the Zell an der Mosel district, Düsseldorf 1938, pp. 361–363.
  23. ↑ Ernst Wackenroder: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Landkreis Cochem, Part 1, Berlin / Munich 1959, p. 141. The oil painting, 100 × 127 cm, signed and dated: "Velten pinxit 1859", originally made by Kayser as before.
  24. ^ Gudrun Hüls-Beth: Parish Church of St. Remigius Kröv. Schnell Art Guide No. 2418, Regensburg 2000, p. 6; Grundhöfer, as above, p. 329.
  25. ↑ The two latest portraits based on the information provided by Grundhöfer.
  26. ^ Grundhöfer, as above, p. 327.
  27. ↑ The lithographer Johann Velten can be found in the address books of the city of Karlsruhe from 1823 to 1862: Karlsruhe: The historical address books of the city of Karlsruhe - www.karlsruhe.de ›...› City history ›City history digital.
  28. ↑ Brigitte Trost: Domenico Quaglio 1787-1837 - monograph and catalog raisonné, Munich 1973, pp. 169f., 357.
  29. ^ Rolf Andree: Catalog of the exhibited works, No. 262 in: Die Düsseldorfer Malerschule, like lit. Verz.
  30. ^ Catalog of the art and trade exhibition in Trier, No. 395. Trier City Library 11/711 8 °.
  31. ↑ Catalog like Lit. Verz., P. 494 f.
  32. ↑ Gottfried Korff (Ed.): Prussia - attempt at a balance sheet. Catalog in five volumes, Vol. 1: Exhibition guide, text by Winfried Ranke, Hamburg 1981, p. 375 No. 21/1 (with ill.).
  33. ↑ Stephan Schölzel: Portrait catalog for the exhibition Kurfürsten und Bürger, Trier 1984, p. 251 - the painting is called "Political Prisoners of the Year 1848".
  34. ^ Exhibition catalog (like Lit. Verz.), No. 83 with color plate 55.
  35. ↑ Angela Nestler: Catalog of the exhibits - The 19th century, pp. 56-58.
personal data
SURNAME Velten, Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Velten, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1807
PLACE OF BIRTH Graach
DATE OF DEATH December 30, 1883
Place of death Graach