Lambert Sachs

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Self portrait
Sachs family coat of arms
Original coat of arms of the master locksmith Georg Sachs, 1596
Pankratius, Catholic Church Offenburg-Windschläg
Madonna and Child, Offenburg-Windschläg Catholic Church

Lambert Sachs (born November 15, 1818 in Mannheim , † October 14, 1903 in Freiburg ) was a German-American painter (and photographer ).

Business card, possibly Louis Walker, business partner
Lambert Sachs visiting card in the Heidelberg studio

family

His parents were the professor at the Grand Ducal Lyceum Mannheim Carl Borromäus (Bartholomäus) Sachs and his wife Anna Margaretha Maria Catherina Sachs from Worms . The history of this tribe of the Sachs family, from which several ennobled lines arose, can be traced back to Nuremberg 1491/92 in a document. A family coat of arms with an ostrich holding a key in its beak (as a sign of the locksmith profession from which the family originally came) has been used since 1596 (especially for the services of master locksmith Georg Sachs in helping to build the castle in Neuburg the Danube ).

resume

Lambert Sachs visited the Grand Ducal Picture Gallery in Mannheim from April 1832 to study with Professors Götzenberger and Weber. In 1835 he then attended the art academy in Karlsruhe (the "Karlsruhe Art School" was not officially founded until 1854). After all, he was mentioned as a participant in the exhibitions of the Baden and the Rheinischer Kunstverein as early as 1835 . The Fund for Artists and Sciences paid him a scholarship for 1840 and 1841. However, this was awarded to him as a trainee at the Royal Academy in Munich . Accordingly, Lambert Sachs had switched to the art academy there as early as 1839 (until 1845). Numerous sketches and lithographs , but also large-format portraits, mainly from his family area, are known from these years . During these years study trips took him to the Bavarian Alps and Switzerland , as well as to Austria , South Tyrol , Slovenia and Italy . In addition to drawings from a trip to the Rhine, there are also works from Offenburg , Trier and Paris .

Emigrated to the United States of America

Presumably as a result of the Baden Revolution , the artist, who was not part of the family, decided to emigrate to the United States of America in 1850. There is as yet no documentary evidence of his arrival overseas. However, his painting portfolio contains a sketched silhouette of an American city (probably New York ) with the date "1850" by hand. Another clue is a children's picture from New York that Sotheby’s auctioned in 1993 , dated 1851. It is not known whether Lambert Sachs operated a studio there. The “Familiennachrichten Sachs” (published from 1877 to 1908 in Freiburg im Breisgau and Baden-Baden ) report, however, that he worked in the USA as a painter and photographer. Accordingly, the artist must have also become active in this new profession.

A few years later Lambert Sachs went to Philadelphia , where, in addition to his painterly activity, he can also be proven for a few years as a partner in the photo studio Sachs & Walker . He appeared in the exhibition lists of the Academie of Fine Arts in Philadelphia as early as 1854. From 1855 he was listed as an artist. According to a note in “Familiennachrichten Sachs”, he lived for a few years as a farmer in the wilderness, all alone and without staff. Since he was unable to make a living from this activity, there is further evidence of a subsequent stay in Ocean County , New Jersey . In Philadelphia he then painted his currently best-known painting The Herbert children in 1857 , now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC (USA). According to American research, Lambert Sachs was already in possession of American citizenship at this point in time - possibly even shortly after his arrival in New York. Incidentally, he carried this with pride until his death.

Lambert Sachs back in Germany

For reasons unknown, the artist returned to Germany from the USA in the early 1860s. For the first time a dated family photo has been preserved for 1862 with the handwritten note “Photographed by Lambert Sachs in Heidelberg 1862”. This is a first reference to his Heidelberg photo studio, in which he was obviously only a partner (Atelier Eduard Schultze, Heidelberg). He also ran a painting studio in this city. In the war year 1870 he left the city and moved to his other relatives in Wertheim am Main. The family of his brother Carl Georg Sachs lived there. After a short, probably one-year stay, he now and finally relocated to Freiburg im Breisgau. A new phase of life began. From his painter's workshop there, numerous paintings emerged over the next 30 years, now mainly altar and church paintings. He was no longer active as a photographer in Freiburg. Most recently, for reasons of age, he moved to the motherhouse of the Sisters of Mercy in Freiburg. There he died - unmarried and childless - two years later on October 14, 1903.

Artistic classification

Lambert Sachs is a painter from the end of the Biedermeier period . The artist's complete oeuvre, whose position in the Biedermeier period documents the transition from pure painting to coloring from the first photographic recordings to pure photography and thus contemporary history, has so far only included a relatively small range of around 40 oil paintings , some lithographs and watercolors as well as around 70 drawings. There are also a few dozen photos from his studio. The lack of clearly identifiable paintings is mainly due to the fact that numerous objects, especially pictures of churches, do not bear any signatures or have not yet been examined for their origin.

In the USA the works belong to the so-called naive painting, whereby this type of painting of the performing arts in no way experiences a negative assessment, rather it reflects the often portrayed family milieu and the respective persons of the American bourgeois society. In Germany the painter will be described as a serious portraitist of the Biedermeier period, for whom his temporary sideline activity as a photographer was probably only a necessary livelihood. So the name in art handbooks has been correct for more than 100 years: Lambert S achs, painter from Mannheim, portraitist .

Catalog of works (selection)

Germany

  • Portrait of the family of the Offenburg senior teacher Kohler (oil on canvas, 54 × 63 cm, 1849). Municipal Museum / Ritterhausmuseum Offenburg / Baden, inv. No. 3160
  • Maria Margaretha Goedecke with her son Gustav Goedecke (oil on canvas, 55 × 50 cm, 1847). City Museum Simeonstift, Trier.
  • Portraits of a married couple, Simeonstift Municipal Museum, Trier.
  • Portrait of Eduard Vetter (oil on canvas, 74 × 62 cm, signed and dated L. Sachs 1882) Augustinermuseum, Freiburg i. Br. Inv.-No. 3621
  • St. Pankratius (church painting, oil on canvas, approx. 180 × 90 cm, 1844/45, Catholic Church Offenburg-Windschläg).
  • Madonna and Child (church picture, oil on canvas, approx. 180 × 90 cm, 1844/45, Catholic Church Offenburg-Windschläg).
  • Child portrait (Eugen Trescher, 2 years, oil on canvas, signed and dated: Lambert Sachs 1879). Freiburg i. Br. 1879
  • Self-portrait Lambert Sachs (colored self-portrait as a young man, drawing, 11.5 × 9.3 cm).
  • Self-portrait Lambert Sachs (the painter with brush and palette, 25 × 17 cm).
  • Portrait of Professor Carl Bartholomäus (Borromeo) Sachs from Mannheim (1786–1853), father of the artist (oil on canvas, 58 × 49 cm, around 1835).
  • Portrait of Karl (Carl) Georg Sachs from Mannheim (1816–1908), brother of the artist. (Oil on canvas, 62 × 52.5 cm).
  • Portrait of Anna Maria Cäcilia Sachs (1820–1834), sister of the artist (oil on canvas, 62 × 52.5 cm).
  • Portrait of Anna Franziska Cäcilia Sachs (1861–1907) (oil on canvas, 32 × 25 cm).
  • Portrait of the tobacco manufacturer Wilhelm Sachs from Mannheim (oil on canvas, 63 × 53 cm, 1843).
  • Portrait of Gustav Goedecke, (oil on canvas, 20.5 × 16.5 cm, architecture student, around 1847).

United States

  • Portrait of a young Girl flanked by her two brothers in a grassy landscape.
  • Portrait of a Gentleman (Exhibition Philadelphia / USA 1854)
  • Full-length Portrait of a Youth, Leibrandt (Exhibition Philadelphia / USA 1854)
  • Portrait Edwin Sattler (Town clerk and superintendent of schools in Union Township, Ocean County, 1856)
  • Hon. Samuel Birdsal's farm (1857), Wiretown near Barnegat New Jersey, (oil on canvas 17 × 31 cm)
  • Portrait of Charles Soper (resident of Barnegat, 1858)
  • General Washington (in the estate of Lambert Sachs, Freiburg i. Br. 1903)
  • The Herbert children (of Toms River) (oil on canvas, 63.3 × 80.3 cm, signed: L. Sachs 1857) National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
  • George Washington in prayer at Valley Forge (collab. W / Paul Gottlieb Daniel Weber) (Oil on canvas laid on Panel. 36.2 × 32.2 in. / 92.1 × 81.9 cm, signed, inscribed).
  • Girl in pink with flowers, boy with hoop and stick (Oil on canvas, 49 × 40 in., New York, ca.1850).
  • Benjamin Franklin and his Kite (Benjamin Franklin and his kite) - draft - (oil on canvas, 24 × 17.9 cm, Philadelphia / USA, around 1854).
  • Benjamin Franklin and his Kite (Benjamin Franklin and his kite) (oil on canvas, 47 × 40 cm, Philadelphia / USA, around 1854).
  • George Washington & Lafayette at the Battle of Monmouth / George Washington & Lafayette in the Battle of Monmouth (oil on canvas, 36 × 41.5 inches / 91.5 × 105.5 cm, around 1854).

A catalog raisonné for paintings and drawings, but also photos (as of 1996) can be found in:

  • Hans Joachim Bodenbach: The painter Lambert Sachs (1818–1903) from Mannheim and his work. In: Mannheimer Hefte 1995/1996. Mannheim 1996, pp. 60–82, with 17 illustrations, 7 of them in color (including three self-portraits of the artist).

Art exhibitions / auctions

  • 1854: Philadelphia: Art Exhibition (General Washington in Prayer at Valley Forge)
  • 1976: New York: Sotheby auction, New York on January 30, 1976 (George Washington in Prayer at Valley Forge / by Lambert Sachs. Landscape by Paul Weber (1823–1916) on the reverse).
  • 1998: London: Sotheby auction (George Washington).
  • 2001: New York: Galerie Doyle, November 6, 2001, General Washington in prayer at Valley Forge (coll. W / Paul Gottlieb Daniel Weber).
  • 2006: New York: Galerie Harvey Weinstein Fine Antiques (George Washington: A Portrayal of George Washington at Valley Forge, praying).
  • 2011: New York: Sotheby, January 21, 2011 (Girl in pink with flowers, boy with hoop and stick, ca.1850).

literature

  • The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts . Philadelphia PA 1854.
  • Carl Sachs (Koblenz): Report on the status of family tree research by the Sachs family. In: Familiennachrichten Sachs 1902. Freiburg im Breisgau 1902, pp. 120 and 136.
  • Sachs: Family news for Sachs, Junghan (n) s and related families. Freiburg i. Br. And Baden-Baden, 1877–1908, here issue XXVIII, November 1903, p. 6 f.
  • Sachs, L. In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of visual artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 29 : Rosa – Scheffauer . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1935, p. 296 .
  • Anna Wells Rutledge: Cumulative Records of Exhibition Catalogs (The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 1807-1870). Philadelphia PA 1955, p. 92.
  • George C. Groce, David H. Wallace: The New York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America (1564-1860). New Haven / London, p. 1957.
  • Daniel M. Mendelowitz: A History of American Art. 2 ed. Washington DC 1970.
  • Hans Joachim Bodenbach: Handwritten family tree Sachs (15 generations) In addition: List of the other (unrelated) Sachs family lines not documented in the literature (at least 10 pieces) . Unpublished Manuscript, Hildesheim 1978.
  • Anna Wells Rutledge, Peter Hastings Falk: Cumulative Record of Exhibition Catalogs. Volume 1. Pennsylvania Academy, Society of Artists, Artists Fund Society, 1988.
  • Peter Hastings Falk: Annual Exhibition Record, 1807-1870. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1988.
  • Deborah Chotner: American naive paintings (The collection of the National Gallery of Art): Systematic Catalog. Washington DC 1992, Lambert Sachs chapter: pp. 330-331.
  • Hans and Hedwig Thomas: The Leininger Hofrat Franciscus Sachs, his family and his origins. Typewritten private printing, 45 pages, Hanau 1992.
  • Christl Lehnert-Leven: A late Biedermeier portrait from Trier. Maria Margaretha Goedecke, first director of the municipal secondary school for girls in Trier, painted in 1847 by Lambert Sachs from Mannheim. In: Neues Trierisches Jahrbuch , 1993, Trier 1993, pp. 113–130 (with two images of oil paintings and a photographic self-portrait of Lambert Sachs).
  • Peter C. Merrill: German immigrant artists in America. A Biographical Dictionary. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 1994.
  • WJ: The painter (and photographer) Lambert Sachs (1808–1903) . In: Rundbrief Fotografie , NF 12 (category: AV media) 4th quarter 1996 p. 27
  • Hans Joachim Bodenbach: The painter Lambert Sachs (1818–1903) from Mannheim and his work. In: Mannheimer Hefte , 1995/96. Mannheim 1996, pp. 60–82, with 17 illustrations (including seven in color and with a catalog raisonné of the paintings and drawings and also the photos including three painted self-portraits by the artist).
  • Katharina Bott: German artists in America 1813-1913 (German painters in America). Publishing house and database for the humanities, Weimar. Book and CD-ROM, Munich 1996. (On the exhibition: Vice-versa 1813–1913: German Painters in America / American Painters in Germany. German Painters in America / American Painters in Germany. Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin)
  • Deutscher Biographischer Index / German Biographical Index. 2. Cumulated and enlarged edition. Saur, Munich 1998, p. 2990.
  • Hans Joachim Bodenbach: The painter Lambert Sachs (1818 Mannheim - Freiburg im Breisgau 1903). In: Badische Heimat , Freiburg i. Br. 1998, pp. 684-696, with 10 ills.
  • Sachs, L. In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of visual artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 19 : Ingouville – Kauffungen . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1926, p. 296 .
  • Anne Schattmann: Sachs, Lambert . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 100, de Gruyter, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-023266-0 , p. 295.
  • Emmanuel Bénézit : Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs. Nouvelle edition. Volume 12, Paris 1999, p. 163.
  • Peter Hastings Falk (Ed.): Who Was Who in America, 1564–1975 . 3 volumes. 1999.
  • Hans Joachim Bodenbach: The grand ducal chief collector Karl (Carl) Georg Sachs (1816–1898) from Wertheim and his family. In: Wertheimer Jahrbuch , Wertheim / Main 1999, pp. 69–118, with 44 illustrations, five of them in color (including self-portrait by the painter Lambert Sachs, as well as 17 other works by the artist).
  • AsKART.com 2005
  • Lonnie Person Dunbier (Ed.): The artists Bluebook: 24,000 North American Artists. Internet 2005.
  • Hans Joachim Bodenbach: Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Unknown portraits by the Baden painter Lambert Sachs (1818–1903). In: Die Ortenau, magazine of the historical association for central bathing. 86th year 2006, Offenburg / Baden 2006, pp. 433–444 (with 5 illustrations).
  • David Turner: … regarding Lambert Sachs: Notes on The Sachs Family. thesachsfamily.org; Retrieved on March 23, 2011 (from: Circulars from Familien-Nachrichten Sachs , XXVIII, p. 134, D - Freiburg i. Br.).
  • D'r Windschläger Bott , 1994 edition: Artworks and artists in Windschläg.

Web links

Commons : Lambert Sachs  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Sachs, Lambert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and photographer
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1903
Place of death Freiburg