Ludolph Lafontaine

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“ Self-Portrait of the Painter Ludolf Ernst Andreas Lafontaine”, 1744 or later;
Oil on canvas , 78 × 60.4 cm, private property, willfully damaged in 1933 , edited digital copy from the Picture Index of Art and Architecture

Ludolph Ernst Andreas Lafontaine (born December 16, 1704 in Celle ; † June 5, 1774 in Braunschweig ) was a German portraitist , freemason and miniature painter and court painter in the Duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg .

Life

Ludolf Ernst Andreas Lafontaine came from a family belonging to the Reformed Christians in France who had emigrated to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation under the Sun King Louis XIV . Born in 1704 in Celle at the time of the Electorate of Hanover as the son of the portrait and church painter Georg Wilhelm Lafontaine (1680–1745) and Anna Elisabeth , née Brabant , Lafontaine traveled for several years, during which he also learned his language skills. His travels took him to the seat of the British Empire , which was located in London during the personal union between Great Britain and Hanover . Here he completed his apprenticeship with his father, who worked there as a royal British court painter. After traveling through Europe he worked at the Wolfenbütteler Hof from 1734 to 1738 and in Leipzig in 1743/44 , where he also became a member of the local Masonic lodge "To the three circles".

In Hanover , Lafontaine was on January 29, 1746 - together with Hans Ernst von Hardenberg , the court junker Adam Gottlieb von Reden , the two brothers Georg Ludwig Mehmet and Johann Ludwig Mehmet von Königstreu and others - one of eight co-founders of the Freemason Lodge Friedrich . He stayed in Hanover for ten years.

In 1754 Lafontaine was made court painter to Duke Karl von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel in Braunschweig . He mainly worked as a portrait painter, but also as a porcelain painter in the factory in Fürstenberg . On January 29, 1757, he married his third or fourth wife Sophie Elisabeth (1724–85), daughter of the Brunswick lawyer Wilhelm Heinrich Thorbrügge and Sophie Catharina Schröter in Braunschweig . His eldest son, who later became the writer August Lafontaine, was one of the many children .

Lafontaine offered his children a patriarchal and at the same time ideal world in which "devotion, love, solid loyalty and the purest trust" were imparted. Later, Lafontaine was to accompany his son August as a guide during an educational trip through Italy .

As a Freemason, Lafontaine was on friendly terms with Professors Ebert, Gaertner, Zacharias and Lessing , who was librarian at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel at the time.

One in the style of romance and at the St. Martin anknüpfende fairytale same story from the life of Lafontaine is by the writer William Görges handed after Lafontaine had a beggar gave his shirt and - covered only by a jacket on torso - shortly Brunswick as a draftsman for three Princesses initially got into trouble, but was then given a dozen of the finest shirts.

Famous works

Lafontaine is one of the first Freemasons in Germany and created, among other things, "[...] 17 oil portraits of the founders of the Schottenloge in Braunschweig", the forerunner of the Lodge Carl to the Crowned Pillar , which originally owned the oil paintings , including a self-portrait of Lafontaine today possibly the only surviving portrait of this series.

A note on the back of Lafontaine's self-portrait, labeled by the descendant Bruno Heusinger (1900–1987), counts Lafontaine among Heusinger's ancestors from the Mitgau family . Since the property of the Braunschweiger box, to which the self-portrait Lafontaine belonged to, after the takeover by the Nazis was destroyed in 1933 by the damaged one stitch in the canvas painting is suspected that the only remaining Braunschweiger box.

Görges had not given any details about the whereabouts of Lafontaine's drawings of the three Brunswick-Welf princesses in Greek costumes .

family

Lafontaine had a brother Johann Christoph (1714-1760), who also worked as a portrait painter, as well as two other brothers and two sisters. Her mother Anna Elisabeth was a descendant of the mayor Henning Brabandt from Braunschweig. There is different information about the number of marriages. In his first marriage he was married to a wealthy English woman who died in Leipzig. On April 13, 1741 or 1747, he married again in Hanover with Louise Wilhelmine (née de Francheville), a daughter of the Hanoverian court surgeon Pierre de Francheville from Nettancourt in Champagne. He married in 1754 finally Hofjungfer Sophie Elisabeth (born Thor Bruges) with whom he shared oil bats lived in Braunschweig.

Sons

  • August Lafontaine (1758–1831), writer
  • Carl Lafontaine (1755–1831), portrait painter ⚭ 1791 Sophie Leberecht Abel (1750–1822)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Lafontaine, Ludolph Ernst Andreas in the database of Niedersächsische Personen (new entry required) of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library - Lower Saxony State Library in the version of February 19, 2009, last accessed on April 13, 2016
  2. ↑ a b Anonymus: Freemasonry in the Oriente of Hanover. Reminder sheets to the festivals from January 14th and 15th, 1857 , revised reprint of the original edition from 1859 (by Rümpler), Barsinghausen: Unikum-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8457-0127-1 , p. 4; online through google books
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Franz Muncker:  Lafontaine, August . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, pp. 512-520 (here: p. 512;).
  4. ^ A b Marion Beaujean :  Lafontaine, August (pseudonym Miltenberg, Gustav Freyer, Selchow). In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , pp. 406-408 ( digitized version ).
  5. ↑ a b c Dirk Sangmeister: Lafontaine, Ludolph Ernst Andreas. In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Dieter Lent et al. (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 8th to 18th century . Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-937664-46-7 , p. 422-423 .
  6. ↑ Hernann Mitgau: Young August Lafontaine. ( Memento from May 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF). In: J. König: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch. Volume 68. Orphanage book printer, Braunschweig 1967, p. 63.
  7. ^ Johann Gottfried Gruber : August Lafontaine's life and work. Halle: EA Schwetschke and Son, 1833, p. 11; online through google books.
  8. ↑ a b Wilhelm Görges (Ed.): Patriotic stories and memorabilia of the past. 1st year. In the association of Braunschweigischer and Hanoverian historians. Friedrich Martin Meinecke, Braunschweig 1843, p. 44 f .; online through google books
  9. ↑ a b Self-portrait of the painter Ludolf Ernst Andreas Lafontaine. on the page bildindex.de
  10. ↑ Hermann Mitgau : Common Life. 1770 to 1870 in Brunswick family papers. Diary records and reports. Volume 1: 1770-1870. Wolfenbütteler Verlags Anstalt, Wolfenbüttel / Hanover 1948, p. 373.
  11. ↑ J. G Gruber: August Lafontaine's life and work . CA Schwetschke, Halle 1833, OCLC 654361688 , p. 8–9 ( books.google.de ).
  12. ^ Lafontaine, Johann Christoph. on pastellists.com (English).
  13. ^ Famous members of the Braunschweig Huguenot community. ( Memento from April 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF) In: Hans Götting (Hrsg.): Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch. Volume 43. Waisenhalsbuchdruckerei, Braunschweig 1962, pp. 120–121.
personal data
SURNAME Lafontaine, Ludolph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lafontaine, Ludolph Ernst Andreas; Lafontaine, Ludolf Ernst; Lafontaine, Andreas; Lafontaine, Ludolf Ernst Andreas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German portraitist, freemason, miniature painter and court painter in Braunschweig
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1704
PLACE OF BIRTH Celle
DATE OF DEATH June 5, 1774
Place of death Braunschweig