Joseph Melling

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Joseph Melling (self-portrait)

Joseph Melling (born December 27, 1724 in St. Avold , Lorraine , † December 23, 1796 in Strasbourg ) was court painter at the Karlsruhe court of the Margraves of Baden .

biography

He came from an old family of artists from Lorraine, to which the painter and etcher Charles Melling (around 1597–1649) belonged and to which the brothers Jean Melling (sculptor) and Nicolas Melling (carpenter and altar carver) also belonged. Nicolas came to St. Avold to build the monastery and the monastery church, where he married the colonel daughter Agnes Metzinger in 1707. The marriage had eight children, including Joseph Melling, born in 1724.

Joseph attended the Augustinen Latin School in Saarlouis , later he completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter in Paris and then attended the Academie royale d'architecture. In 1750 he received the Grand Prize for Painting. His early work is largely unknown. It is possible that he was temporarily employed in the workshop of his uncle Valentin Metzinger († 1759) in Laibach , where he gained experience with church painting.

In 1758 he followed his brother, the margravial Baden court sculptor Christoph Melling , as an artist at the Karlsruhe court of the margraves of Baden. In 1759 he married Josepha Lengelacher in Daxlanden , the daughter of Ignaz Lengelacher (1698–1780), who, as a court figure, was one of the employees of Melling's brother. Lengelacher's nephew Joachim Günther (cousin of Joseph Melling's wife) was also established in the region as the court sculptor for the Prince-Bishop of Speyer . In the year of his wedding, Melling was appointed court painter to Baden and began one of his main works in Karlsruhe, the ceiling painting in the great marble hall of the palace, completed in 1760. In 1764 he painted the main altar sheet for the town church in Rastatt , and in the following years five more pictures for the side altars.

Melling was an advisor to Margravine Karoline Luise , who acquired a large number of paintings that later formed the basis for the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe . Melling also taught the Margrave's children painting and drawing.

In 1769 he was in Schuttern , where he created a ceiling painting and seven altarpieces in the monastery church. From the same year there is also a picture for the Capuchin monastery in Baden-Baden , which was later moved to the parish church in Kuppenheim . In 1770 he painted five altarpieces for the collegiate church in Hechingen . Another major work by Melling was created in 1772 in Freiburg im Breisgau , a large mural in the Sickingen (later grand ducal) palace.

Melling ran a hand-drawing school in a building that used to belong to the menagerie at Karlsruhe Palace. His daughter Marie Luise (1762–1799) was a painting student with his father, then entered the Lichtenthal monastery , where she was named Maria Rosa and created the two large wall paintings in the consulting room.

For financial reasons, Meling turned from the small Karlsruhe court to Strasbourg in 1774, where he also founded a painting school, the Academie de déssin d'après nature . He remained on friendly terms with the Karlsruhe court and, after the death of Margravine Karoline Luise in 1783, created a directory of her artistic estate, which was also the oldest directory in the Karlsruhe picture gallery.

Melling's painting school in Strasbourg lasted beyond the French Revolution in 1789, but became obsolete with the introduction of the state central schools. In 1795 Melling was again head of a private drawing school. In Strasbourg, Melling was supported by his son Joseph Ignaz Melling (1764-1817), who was trained as an artist in Italy , who later had his own drawing school in Rastatt and taught as a professor at the Rastatt Lyceum.

Works (selection)

Birth of Venus , ceiling painting in the marble hall of Karlsruhe Palace
  • "The Birth of Venus", ceiling painting in the large marble hall of Karlsruhe Palace (destroyed on September 27, 1944)
  • "The Rentkammerrat daughter Friderica Sophia Henning as shepherdess", Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
  • Altarpieces (liberation of Pope Alexander from prison, Saint George fighting the dragon, Saint Joseph on the death bed, Blessed Bernhard as a warrior, Mary and Dominic, Saint Alexius on the death bed) in the Rastatt city church
  • Altarpiece (Saint Anthony of Padua), Kuppenheim parish church
  • Ceiling fresco and seven altarpieces, Schuttern Abbey Church (ceiling fresco destroyed in a fire in 1853)
  • Altarpieces (Crucifixion, Flight into Egypt, Apostle Jacob, Annunciation, Death of St. Nepomuk), Hechingen Collegiate Church
  • Blessed Bernhard, women's choir of the Lichtenthal monastery
  • Wall painting (park landscape and shepherd scenes ) in the Grand Ducal Palace, Freiburg im Breisgau (destroyed by fire in 1944)
  • Portrait of Nicolas Guibal, State Museum Stuttgart
  • Self-portrait, Palais Rohan, Strasbourg
  • two ceiling paintings (Parnassus, Allegorical Glorification of the School) in the library and ballroom of the Lycée Bartholdi, Kolmar

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ To Ignaz Lengelacher

literature

Web links

Commons : Joseph Melling  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Melling, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Court painter at the Karlsruhe court of the Margraves of Baden
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1724
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Avold , Lorraine
DATE OF DEATH December 23, 1796
Place of death Strasbourg