Katharina Karolina Luja

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Katharina Karolina Luja (also Catharina Carolina Luja, born January 1, 1800 in Hanau ; † August 4, 1874 in Marburg ), married. von Drach , was a German painter and graphic artist.

life and work

Katharina Karolina Luja grew up in an artistic family that encouraged her daughter's artistic talents. Her mother was Anna Maria Luja, geb. Deibel (* 1776; † 1862), her father Karl Friedrich Luja (* 1763; † 1832), cantor, cellist and teacher for religion and singing at the Hanauer Bürger- und Realschule. The date of her marriage to Christian August von Drach, captain in the 3rd Kurhessian Infantry Regiment in Hanau, is not known. In 1839 the only child was born: Karl Alhard von Drach (* 1839 - † 1915). Her husband died on January 1st, 1856 and Katharina Karolina von Drach moved from Hanau to her son in Marburg in 1860.

Katharina Karolina Luja attended the drawing academy in Hanau at an early age , which was originally founded to improve the design quality of gold and silversmiths. Students were trained on printed templates designed by the teachers. Katharina Karolina Luja received lessons from Conrad Westermayr , who had taught at the academy since 1806, to which he had returned as a professor after years of teaching and traveling. He was supported in his teaching activities by his wife Henriette Westermayr, who was also a painter and Katharina Karolina Luja also taught. The academy had the sole right to teach drawing and painting to its daughters in private houses in Hanau. Katharina Karolina Luja, on the other hand, received lessons at the academy. In Karl Wilhelm Justi's Foundations of a Hessian Scholar, Writer and Artist History from 1806 to 1830 , Westermayr describes some of his most talented students, including Luja: “She came to Westermayr in her early youth and proved one extraordinary drive and zeal for drawing; she was in the academy all day, making such rapid and vigorous progress for her age that it astonished. Her imagination gave her ideas for compositions at an early stage that gave hope for the extraordinary. "

A self-portrait of Katharina Karolina Luja, which shows her as a young woman, is owned by the picture gallery of the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel. Only a few works by Luja have survived; in addition to the self-portrait, there is also a painting dated 1823 in the possession of the Museum Landscape Hessen Kassel, which shows Mary with the baby Jesus in a landscape. Luja also produced lithographs for the Wilhelm Kuhl lithography company in Hanau. These were Christian motifs (Madonna, St. Bruno, Christ, Evangelist John), flower studies and portraits of famous personalities such as Benjamin Franklin, which were offered as picture decorations and sold in large numbers. In 1832, for example, she created a lithograph of the Evangelist John as the author of the Apocalypse, based on a painting by Domenichino that hangs today in the Emeritage in Leningrad. Luja probably copied a model from the time, because Johann Gotthard von Müller had already made a copperplate from this picture in 1808 . That Luja was known for these lithographs is made clear by her mention in Georg Caspar Nagler's Neues Allgemeine Künstler-Lexicon (1835–1852), which lists Katharina Luja as an artist from Hanau who, in 1837, created La vierge de la maison d ' for the lithographic institute Wilhelm Kuhl Albe lithographed after Rafael. There is also a small bundle of drawings that came to the collection of the Historisches Museum Hanau Schloss Philippsruh through the estate of her son, the mathematics professor and later state curator in Kassel, Karl Alhard von Drach . These are mainly portraits and portrait studies, as well as some flower and fruit studies.

relationship

Her uncle was Pastor Johann Christian Reinhard Luja . From 1818 to 1836 he was pastor in Dotzheim and co-founder of the Society for Nassau Antiquities and Historical Research, founded in 1821 .

Works

All of the surviving works by Katharina Karolina Luja come from the estate of her son Karl Alhard von Drach, who bequeathed them to the Gemäldegalerie Kassel on the one hand and the Hanau History Society on the other hand when he died in 1915, together with other works of art and decorative objects .

  • Madonna and Child, 1823, Museum Landscape Hessen Kassel (Inv.-No .: 1875/1239).
  • Self-portrait , 1825/30, Museum Landscape Hessen Kassel (Inv.-No .: 1875/1238).
  • Preparatory drawing for the self-portrait, Museum Landscape Hessen Kassel (Inv.No. GS 2364).
  • Bundle of drawings of studies of people, flowers and plants, views of the village as well as stone prints (lithography institute Wilhelm Kuhl) of the Evangelist Johannes as the author of the Apocalypse (based on Domenichino) and a booklet with pictures of flowers, Hanau Historical Museum .

literature

  • Irene Ewinkel: Katharina Karolina Luja, married von Drach, in: Irene Ewinkel (ed.): The other life. Review of Marburg artists, Marburg 2015 (Marburg city publications on art and culture, vol. 105), ISBN 978-3-942487-06-1 .
  • Dagmar Gambichler: Painters and copper engravers of the Rhine-Main area from 1780 to 1850. Training and artistic creation between profession and amateurism, Diss. Mainz 1997, published 2000.
  • Karl Wilhelm Justi, basis for a Hessian scholar, writer and artist story from 1806 to 1830, Marburg 1831.
  • Georg Kaspar Nagler: New general artist lexicon or news from the life and works of painters, sculptors, builders, engravers, form cutters, lithographers, draftsmen, medalists, ivory workers, etc. (22 volumes), Munich 1835–1852.
  • Entry Katharina Karolina Luja. In: General Artist Lexicon (AKL). The visual artists of all times and peoples. Founded by Günter Meißner, Andreas Beyer / Bénédicte Savoy / Wolf Tegethoff (eds.), Online version, retrieved from Marburg University Library.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The information is based on Irene Ewinkel: Katharina Karolina Luja, married von Drach, in: Irene Ewinkel (ed.): The other life. Review of Marburg artists, Marburg 2015, pp. 47–57; Dagmar Gambichler: Painters and copper engravers of the Rhine-Main area from 1780 to 1850, Diss. Mainz 1997, published 2000, p. 128/129, p. 409 f .; Information city archive Hanau; Entry Katharina Karolina Luja in: General Artist Lexicon (AKL).
  2. ↑ Ewinkel, p. 52.
  3. ↑ Gamblicher, p. 41.
  4. ^ Karl Wilhelm Justi, Basis for a Hessian Scholar, Writer and Artist History from 1806 to 1830, Marburg 1831, p. 757.
  5. ↑ The painting is in the collection of the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel and is dated to 1825/1830. A preliminary drawing for this painting has also been preserved in the graphic collection of the museum landscape (Inv.No. GS 2364)
  6. ^ Museum landscape Hessen Kassel, inventory catalog of the paintings of the 19th century Neue Galerie: Maria and the Jesuskind in a landscape, oil on canvas, 97.2 x 82 cm. Museum landscape Hessen Kassel, inscription on the stretcher Catharina Luja 1823; Gambichler, Luja, No. 16.
  7. ↑ Ewinkel, p. 50.
  8. ^ Georg Kaspar Nagler: New general artist lexicon, Munich 1835-1852, vol. 8, p. 126.
  9. ^ Alois Holtmeyer: Karl Alhard von Drach, Yearbook of the Preservation of Monuments in the Reg.-Bez. Kassel on behalf of the district commission for the research and preservation of the monuments within the Reg.-Bez. Kassel, 1920, pp. 179-80.
personal data
SURNAME Luja, Katharina Karolina
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Luja, Catharina Carolina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1800
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanau
DATE OF DEATH 4th August 1874
Place of death Marburg