Joseph von Keller

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Joseph von Keller, photo by Matthias Radermacher
Birthplace of Joseph von Keller
Joseph von Keller and his wife Berta, née Schulgen (1816–1900), on a painting by Franz Ittenbach

Joseph von Keller (born March 31, 1811 in Linz am Rhein , † May 30, 1873 in Düsseldorf ) was a German engraver of the Düsseldorf School .

Life

Keller came from a long-established Linz family, the father was a grocer, the grandfather a councilor and aldermen. He grew up with his nine siblings in modest circumstances. His father wanted to give him a good school education as an entry into professional life and therefore registered him in the Prussian Progymnasium (today Martinus Gymnasium Linz ).

A business friend of his father's from Bonn discovered the boy's talent and arranged an apprenticeship in the Bonn copper printing company C. Schulgen-Bettendorff. So Joseph von Keller learned the job of a copper printer and engraver under the harsh conditions of an apprentice at the time.

Keller developed his interest in the arts at an early stage and he only saw teaching as a basic technical training. Logically, he turned down the offer to stay as an assistant in the master’s house after his apprenticeship, even though he had fallen in love with the master’s daughter Bertha Schulgen (1816–1900) and married her in early July 1841.

At first, Joseph von Keller struggled to stay afloat with badly paid commissioned work and student portraits. When he was engraving the mural in the auditorium of Bonn University in copper, Wilhelm von Schadow , director of the Düsseldorf Art Academy and founder of the Düsseldorf School of Painting , noticed him. At his academy, which he entered in 1835, he perfected his technique for ten years, supported by the teacher and artist Julius Hübner , from whom he also received commissions and whose works he reproduced, among other things. In 1838, Keller studied with Desnoyers and François Forster in Paris . From December 1841 to July 27, 1843, Keller lived in Rome , where he took part in the life of the German Romans and in 1842 in the "Cervarofest" of the Ponte Molle Society .

At Keller's suggestion, the engravers were given their own rooms in the academy, and so he created the basis for the later copper engraving school at the Düsseldorf Academy. He himself became a teacher there. In 1839, Keller succeeded Ernst Carl Thelott in the art of copperplate engraving. Keller is considered to be the actual founder of the Düsseldorf School of Copper Engraving, from whose large number of students Adam Goswin Glaser , Nüsser , Franz Paul Massau , Friedrich August Pflugfelder , Theodor Janssen , Fritz Dinger , Nikolaus Barthelmess , Rudolf Stang and Josef Kohlschein stand out. All of them worked for the Kunstverein, and their papers did not a little to spread the fame of the Düsseldorf pictures, especially in the earlier days. Other students in his engraving class included Xaver Steifensand , Ludwig Heitland , Julius Allgeyer , Anton Eitel , Karl Friedrich Seifert (* 1829), Heinrich Kipp (* 1826), Friedrich August Ludy and Carl Wilhelm Overbeck .

At Keller's instigation, the C. Schulgen-Bettendorffsche Kupferdruckerei was moved to Düsseldorf in 1849 to meet the growing demand for image reproductions, especially by the Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia and the Association for the Dissemination of Religious Images , which was run in 1841/1842 under the patronage of Johannes was founded by Geissel to comply. The engraving class of Joseph Keller and his numerous students worked hand in hand with the painters for this purpose. Eight million devotional images have been circulated internationally within 25 years .

The disputa

Keller's reputation was based on the fact that he not only copied the model, but also tried to emulate the artist's statement and translate it into graphics. In 1841 he received the Art Association of the Rhineland and Westphalia commissioned Raphael Disputa to reproduce. For this purpose he went to Rome with his wife Bertha and his brother and now a student, Franz Keller (1821-1896). He returned a few years later, but it took another 13 years before the first prints of the Disputa were available, which aroused a sensation and admiration across Europe. The modest salary, since September 1846 as a professor of copper engraving, prompted Keller to seek additional income, for example by trying to sell his disputa as a print. He also taught the Sunday classes for craftsmen in free hand drawing at the Düsseldorf Academy. However, its economic circumstances remained far behind its artistic acceptance.

Sistine Madonna

Thanks to some Bonn patrons, he was able to carry out another larger commission, the engraving of the Sistine Madonna after the painting by Raphael. This work, which he laboriously completed in 1871 due to his bad health, was highly valued in art circles. In addition to numerous honors, it also earned him the title of nobility.

Keller's plan to engrave the “carpet boxes ” in the Victoria and Albert Museum , which Raphael had created as a template for carpets in the Sistine Chapel, with his students and then make them available to schools as educational tools, remained unfinished. Keller's successor at the Düsseldorf chair was Carl Ernst Forberg in 1879 , one of his many students, as did Anton Eitel, who took on responsibility for the Association for the Dissemination of Religious Images .

The city of Linz am Rhein honored Keller by naming the Joseph von Keller School.

Illustrations (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Joseph von Keller  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Death note: Bertha Keller
  2. ^ Civil status. Weddings: July 3rd, the teacher at the local art academy Anton Joseph Keller in Düsseldorf, with JEBH Schulgen, in the Neustadt. , in Düsseldorfer Kreisblatt and Daily Anzeiger (No. 190) of July 16, 1841
  3. ↑ a b Friedrich Schaarschmidt : On the history of Düsseldorf art, especially in the XIX. Century , Verlag des Kunstverein for the Rhineland and Westphalia, Düsseldorf, 1902, p. 244
  4. ^ Friedrich Noack : The Germanness in Rome since the end of the Middle Ages . Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1927, Volume 2, p. 307 f.
  5. ^ Moritz Blanckarts:  Keller, Josef von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, p. 583 f.
  6. ↑ Ludwig Heitland: 1853 first mentioned in the inventory signature of the Düsseldorf Art Academy: BR 0004 No. 1560, sheet 22V: 1850, 17 years old, 2nd class copper engraving school from Joseph Keller; Sheet 187V: 1860 in the teaching staff (since June 1860 auxiliary teacher in the elementary class); Sheet 250V: 1863 Head of the copper engraving master class.
  7. ^ Heinrich Kipp: cousin of the then future director of the Hetjens Museum, Laurenz Heinrich Hetjens ; Kipp, who had studied at the art academy in Düsseldorf and worked there briefly as a teacher, probably brought the young Hetjens into contact with art before he moved to Paris himself.
  8. ↑ C. Schulgen-Bettendorff's copper printing works at the Königliche Kunst-Akademie zu Düsseldorf moved its establishment to No. 118, extended Breite Straße (above the Cologne-Mindener train stations) , in Düsseldorfer Journal und Kreisblatt (No. 21), from 25 January 1849
personal data
SURNAME Keller, Joseph von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engraver
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH Linz on the Rhine
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1873
Place of death Dusseldorf