Niklaus Pfyffer

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Niklaus Pfyffer von Altishofen (born August 4, 1836 in Lucerne ; † May 22, 1908 there ) was a Swiss landscape painter and etcher .

Life

Pfyffer, offspring of the Lucerne patrician family Pfyffer von Altishofen , was the son of Niklaus Leonz Joseph Johann Pfyffer (* 1811) and his wife Anna Maria Rosa, née Knörr (* 1816). In his career aspiration to become a painter, he was supported by his father, who was a member of the board of the Kunstgesellschaft Luzern and worked as a painter in his free time. After completing secondary school (1855), he took his first drawing and painting lessons from the Alpine painter Jakob Josef Zelger (1812 to 1885) from Central Switzerland . This placed him in Geneva in 1856 to Alexandre Calame , where he mainly made copies of paintings and studies. From 1859 to 1862 Pfyffer attended the landscape painting class under the direction of director Johann Wilhelm Schirmer at the Grand Ducal Baden Art School in Karlsruhe . In 1862/1863 Pfyffer stayed with Jost Muheim in Düsseldorf , where he - possibly through private lessons with Julius Rollmann - made himself more familiar with landscape painting at the Düsseldorf School . In 1863 he returned to his hometown and set up a studio .

There he created paintings with preferred views of Lake Lucerne , the decorated in warm tones and economical with figures painted decoration are. This subject was very popular as a souvenir in the emerging alpinism and tourism in Switzerland . Among the tourists who became Pfyffer's customers was the British monarch Victoria , who took her entourage on a trip to Switzerland in the late summer of 1868 and stayed at the Wallis Pension on the Gütsch in Lucerne during this time . One year after her visit, she had Pfyffer commissioned to capture in oil the view she had enjoyed from the Gütsch over the lake to the Rigi and the other mountains in Central Switzerland. When the Queen invited him to Edinburgh in 1874 so that he could paint Edinburgh Castle in the vicinity, he was unable to accept this request because of typhoid fever . He renewed contact with her when in 1885 he commissioned her to create seven views of the Aix-les-Bains area , where the queen stopped on a spring holiday.

In 1871 Pfyffer moved to Munich for seven years . There he maintained friendly contacts with his compatriots Konrad Grob , Otto Frölicher and Adolf Stäbli . His marriage to Theresia Göldlin von Tiefenau, who gave birth to seven children, also took place during his time in Munich. From 1878 to 1884 Pfyffer lived with his family in Basel , where he worked as a private art teacher in addition to his work as a painter. In 1885 Pfyffer moved into the family-owned Buttisholz Castle in Buttisholz . He led a secluded life there until his death.

Pfyffer took part in a number of exhibitions at home and abroad, such as the International Art Exhibition in London (1873), the Paris Salon (1882) and the First National Art Exhibition in Switzerland (1890). In 1891 he published the collotype picture book Die Burgen des Basler- and Solothurn-Jura .

Work (selection)

  • Vitzenauerstock from Seelisbergerbuten , 1868, Royal Collection , from 1873 booked as furnishings by Osborne House
  • View of Lake Lucerne (View of Lake Lucerne) , 1868/1869, Royal Collection, from 1872 as facilities for this Windsor Castle recorded
  • View of Pilatus von Meggen (The Pilatus from Meggen) , 1869, Royal Collection
  • View from Maison Mottet , 1885, Royal Collection, Balmoral Castle

literature

  • André Rogger, Dieter Ruckstuhl: Niklaus Pfyffer, landscape painter to Queen Victoria. Association Pro Heidegg, Gelfingen 2007.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bettina Baumgärtel , Sabine Schroyen, Lydia Immerheiser, Sabine Teichgröb: Directory of foreign artists. Nationality, residence and studies in Düsseldorf. In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Hrsg.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918. Volume 1, Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , p. 437.
  2. ↑ Vitzenauerstock from Seelisbergerbuten , data sheet in the portal royalcollection.org.uk , accessed on March 18, 2017.
  3. ^ View of Lake Lucerne , data sheet in the portal royalcollection.org.uk , accessed on March 18, 2017.
  4. ↑ The Pilatus from Meggen , data sheet in the royalcollection.org.uk portal , accessed on March 18, 2017.
  5. ↑ View from Maison Mottet , data sheet in the portal royalcollection.org.uk , accessed on March 18, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Pfyffer, Niklaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pfyffer von Altishofen, Niklaus (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss landscape painter and etcher
DATE OF BIRTH 4th August 1836
PLACE OF BIRTH Lucerne
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1908
Place of death Lucerne