Matthias Austria

Matthias Oesterreich: Self-Portrait. Detail from an etching by Matthias Oesterreich from the Raccolta de vari disegni dell cavalliero Pietro Leone Ghezzi

The composer and conductor Niccolò Jommelli (1714–1774). Drawing by Pier Leone Ghezzi , etching by Matthias Oesterreich. Plate 3 of Raccolta de vari disegni dell cavalliero Pietro Leone Ghezzi, edited by him .

The old castrat at the Dresden court Domenico Annibali . Drawing by Pier Leone Ghezzi , etching by Matthias Oesterreich. Plate 3 of Raccolta de vari disegni dell cavalliero Pietro Leone Ghezzi, edited by him .

Matthias Oesterreich (* 1716 probably in Hamburg ; † 1778 in Berlin ) was a German painter and etcher and worked as a gallery director in Sanssouci under King Friedrich II of Prussia .

Life

Matthias Oesterreich was probably born in Hamburg in 1716. He came to Dresden at a young age , where he learned drawing from Giovanni Battista Groni . He stayed in Dresden from 1741 to 1757. In 1751 he became an employee of the Dresden Kupferstichkabinett and in 1755 a sub-inspector of the Dresden picture gallery . He had acquired his knowledge of art, painters and paintings as well as the other art movements on various trips to Italy . Due to his expertise , he was also commissioned by private collectors to compile collection catalogs, such as that of the merchant Eimken in 1761 or the private collection of HJH Stein in 1763.

In 1757 Austria moved to Potsdam with the permission of the Saxon Elector and there became director of the gallery in Sanssouci, when he died in Berlin in 1778. In this position he also published a description of the gallery and the collection of prints by Friedrich II in Sanssouci, the second edition of which was published in 1770 and a French translation in 1773.

Austria has also appeared itself as an eraser with various sheets of paper , “some of which are rarely mentioned.” His etchings of caricatures by Pietro Leone Ghezzi and a series of sheets from the collection of Count Brühl can be clearly identified.

plant

• Raccolta de vari disegni dell cavalliero Pietro Leone Ghezzi, romano è di Giovann Battista Internari, romano: e di alcuni altri maestri . 42 etchings. Potsdam 1766
• Description of the Royal Picture Gallery and Cabinet in SansSouci 1770
• Description and explanation of the groups, statues, whole and half breast pieces, bas-reliefs, urns and vases of marble, bronze and bley, both ancient and modern, which make up the collection of Sr. Majesty, the King of Prussia . George Jacob Decker, Berlin 1775
• Description of all rarities in art and other antiquities, especially on statues in the royal. Lust-Schlosse Charlottenburg, near the Residenz-Stadt Berlin . Winter, Berlin 1768
• Recueil de quelques dessins de plusieurs habiles maitres tirés du cabinet de Mr. le Comte de Brühl à Dresden . 4o sheets after drawings by Boitard, S. Cantarini, la Hire, Procaccini, Rafael.
• Piramus and Thisbe , Rome 1746
• Time cuts the wings of the sleeping Cupid
• One heal. Family, after Procaccini
• Ceiling in a building in the former Brühl Garden in Dresden, according to Palko

literature

• Georg Kaspar Nagler: New general artist lexicon . Fleischmann, Munich 1840 Volume 10, pp. 319-320 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
• Detailed catalog of works in Catalog raisonne du cabinet d'estampes de feu Mr. Winckler , pp. 617–618 ( limited preview in Google book search).

Web links

Commons : Matthias Oesterreich  - Collection of images

• Search of paintings and engravings at pinterest.com

Individual evidence

1. ^ German biography
2. ↑ According to another statement, he moved to Lübeck in 1726, but this is contradicted by the fact that the artist describes himself as MO Amburgese on his etching St. Ignaz after P. Rotari .
3. ^ Georg Kaspar Nagler: New general artist lexicon . Fleischmann, Munich 1840 Volume 10, p. 319 ( limited preview in the Google book search).