Joseph Merry

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joseph Fröhlich, portrayed by Bernardo Bellotto , called Canaletto (1747)
Joseph Fröhlich (1729)

Joseph Fröhlich (born February 18, 1694 in Altaussee , Duchy of Styria , † June 24, 1757 in Marienmont near Warsaw , Kingdom of Poland ) was the court jester of Augustus the Strong .

Life

Fröhlich was born as the son of a traveling merchant and the granddaughter of a mill owner in Altaussee (Scheichlmühle) in Styria (Austria). His father had died before Joseph was born, and so the child grew up in the grandfather's mill and first learned the miller's trade . On the waltz he got to know his first sleight of hand .

In 1719 he married Ursula Lainbach, who gave birth to two sons and a daughter.

Fröhlich initially got a job in Bayreuth as a court acrobat with Margrave Georg Wilhelm . In 1725 he came to the Saxon court in Dresden for the first time .

From around 1726 he was assigned the “Baron” Gottfried Schmiedel as the (second) court handler for the purpose of entertaining the bored court society . Until the death of the "Baron" in July 1756, both formed a historically famous, funny couple for 30 years.

After the death of his first wife, Fröhlich married the baker's daughter Eva Christiane Zöbler in 1727 and finally moved with her to Dresden, where he was officially awarded the title of Royal Elector Court Pocket Player . He entertained his contemporaries with magic tricks, rough jokes and ridiculous poems. Since August the Strong was also King of Poland at the same time, Fröhlich was also often on the move between Saxony and Poland.

With his second wife, Fröhlich had two other sons (two of his five children, however, died after a short time).

August the Strong died on February 1, 1733. His successor Friedrich August II was not considered as cheerful as his father, but Fröhlich kept his post and continued to receive his salary.

In 1754 Fröhlich received a royal court mill in Marienmont near Warsaw for life. However, he stayed in Dresden and in 1755 had a house built on the east side of the northern bridgehead of the Augustus Bridge , which was popularly known as the Narrenhäusel . It was converted into a restaurant in 1938, badly damaged in the air raids on Dresden in 1945 and later demolished.

On August 29, 1756, 70,000 Prussian soldiers marched into Saxony and occupied Dresden on September 10 - the Seven Years' War had begun. Fröhlich fled with his family to Marienmont near Warsaw, where he died on June 24, 1757.

Joseph Fröhlich as a motif in the fine arts

Bronze sculpture by Heinrich Apel , 1978

Joseph Fröhlich was portrayed very often by contemporary artists - almost more often than August the Strong himself. Among other things, Fröhlich, dressed in his native Styrian costume , was portrayed in 1747 by Bernardo Bellotto called Canaletto. Some of these works are exhibited in the Dresden State Art Collections .

In the green vault there is an ivory figure decorated with gold , silver and precious stones on a wooden base (H × W × D 23.3 × 16.8 × 23.8 cm). It was created by Carl August Lücke the Elder. J. and shows Fröhlich sitting on a two-wheeled cart pulled by two pigs. The highlight: If you open a door on the back of the car, you can see that it is a mobile night chair and that Fröhlich is sitting on it with his pants down.

A bust of Fröhlich made of Meissen porcelain by Gottlieb Kirchner dates from around 1730 and is exhibited in the porcelain collection .

In 1978, a bronze sculpture created by Heinrich Apel was erected at the former location of the “Narrenhäusel” .

Hans Joachim Schädlich processed Fröhlich's life in his 2015 work Narrenleben .

In July 2019, a monument designed by Johann Feilacher was unveiled in Altaussee in front of the Amtshaus in the park . The monument is a bronze cast, a red fool's hat hovers over a concrete base with the inscription SEMPER FRÖHLICH, NUMQUAM TRAURIG .

literature

  • Rainer Rückert : The court jester Joseph Fröhlich. Edition Huber, Offenbach 1998, ISBN 3-921785-72-3 .
  • Johannes Glötzner: The reading habits of the Saxon court jester Joseph Fröhlich. Edition Enhuber, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-936431-14-0 .
  • Johannes Glötzner: Semper Fröhlich or the muzzle. Gräv, Gräfelfing 2010, ISBN 978-3-942138-01-7 .
  • Carl Willnau (pseudonym for Carl W. Naumann)
Roman: Hofnarr Fröhlich - the delightful chronicle of his life
Greifenverlag Rudolstadt 1954 - (reprint of an edition from 1943) license number 384-220 / 29/57 322 pages
  • Eberhard Görner (author) and Ingolf Höhl (illustrator)
Novel: The fool and his king: The pocket player Joseph Fröhlich in Dresden
Chemnitzer Verlag 2009 , ISBN 978-3-937025-49-0 . (P. 256)

Web links

Commons : Joseph Fröhlich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Joachim Harmful: "Fools Life" In the shadow of power , review by Ulrich Rüdenauer in the program book market of Germany radio from 6 May 2015
  2. ↑ Fröhlich monument inaugurated in Bad Aussee. Joseph Fröhlich Festival 2019. September 5, 2019, accessed September 7, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Joseph Fröhlich Monument inaugurated. September 2, 2019, accessed September 7, 2019 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ The original secular will and the official estate regulation are kept in the main state archive in Dresden . Rückert quotes and comments on it on page 188 and in: Der Hofnarr Joseph Fröhlich. Edition Huber, Offenbach 1998, ISBN 3-921785-72-3
personal data
SURNAME Happy, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Court jester of August the Strong
DATE OF BIRTH February 1694
PLACE OF BIRTH Altaussee , Austria
DATE OF DEATH June 24, 1757
Place of death Marienmont near Warsaw , Kingdom of Poland