Otto Christopher von der Howen (draftsman)

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Otto Christopher von der Howen (born 6, jul. / March 17, 1774 greg. In Rojel, Bartholomew parish, county Dorpat in the Russian Baltic province of Livonia ; † 25. May 1848 in Nijmegen , Netherlands ), was a Baltic German soldier as well as artist, draftsman and watercolorist.

For almost 55 years he served in the armies of Russia, the Batavian Republic , France and the Netherlands. He left behind a large number of sketches, drawings and watercolors, which were widely used as lithographs and can be found in museums, collections and in the art trade.

City Hall of Cologne, Litho v. Vauzelle after Otto Howen, lithographed by G. Engelmann

Life dates

Otto Christopher was born as the eldest child of the Imperial Russian Lieutenant Colonel Otto Johann von der Howen (1737-1811) and his wife Catharina Dorothea von Dücker (1748 -?). According to family tradition, he was destined for the Imperial Russian military service and at the age of 11 he joined the St. Petersburg Pagencorps , where he was trained for a career in the artillery branch.

At the age of 22, Otto Christopher quit his service in the Russian army in 1796. According to his own statements, his application for release was granted on July 2, 1796; as the reason for his resignation he later gave the political circumstances. Documents relating to this process have not yet been found in Russian archives. Unconfirmed sources report that he fell out of favor at the court in Saint Petersburg , while others suspect that he was involved in a conspiracy against Tsar Paul I (murdered 1801).

In 1799 he joined the army of the Batavian Republic with the rank of gunner and made a career there and in the armies of Napoleonic France and the Netherlands. Promoted to general in 1816, he served in the Royal Dutch Army until his retirement in 1839.

On August 5, 1809, Otto Christopher married Julie-Philippe Auguste Uitenhage de Mist (1783-1832) in The Hague. Her son Otto, born in 1815, also became a soldier and died in 1843 with the rank of lieutenant.

Otto Christopher von der Howen died on May 25, 1848 in Nijmegen at the age of 74. A street in Namur is named after him under the name rue Oscar (sic!) De Howen ( map ).

It is unclear why in the genealogy published in 1932 in the Genealogical Handbook of the Baltic Knighthoods, part of Courland, only his dates of birth are listed, with the note Without further news .

Military career

  • 1790 to 1796 service in the Imperial Russian Army (participation in the war against the Ottoman Empire )
  • 1796 Resignation to the rank of captain for reasons that have not yet been clearly clarified
  • 1799 entry into the army of the Republic of Batavia with the rank of gunner , wounded at the Battle of Bergen , then to lieutenant promoted
  • 1804 lieutenant in the engineering group (pioneers)
  • 1807 promoted to captain and 1807 to regimental commander with the rank of colonel
  • 1810 to 1814, after France took over the Dutch army, took part in Napoleon's campaigns in Spain with the rank of colonel, wounded in 1811 at Albérique
  • 1814 Joined the Dutch army with the rank of colonel in the artillery
  • 1816 to 1830 in the rank of general majors, head of an artillery regiment, responsible for the fortresses in the provinces of Namur, Hainaut and Luxembourg
  • Arrested with his soldiers and officers in the course of the Belgian uprising in Mons in 1830 and imprisoned in Brussels
  • From 1831 until his retirement in 1839 he was in command of the Nijmegen Fortress

Otto Christopher von der Howen was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of the Dutch Lion .

Artistic activity

It is not known whether Otto von der Howen received any artistic training. His specialist knowledge as an artilleryman certainly helped him to draw landscapes and buildings to scale and perspective.

A large number of sketches in chalk or ink have been preserved, implemented in chalk or pen drawings, some with watercolors. Selected motifs were lithographed and printed by well-known artists such as Jean-Baptiste Madou , Théodore Fourmois and Godefroy Engelmann on behalf of publishers .

Almost all of the drawings show landscapes or buildings, only a few portraits are known. Otto Christopher von der Howen found his motifs in his surroundings in Namur and Nijmegen and while traveling.

  • Vue de Francfort (Arneut to Howen)

  • De Beurs van Antwerpen (Madou after Howen)

  • Zicht op Antwerpen vanuit het Vlaams Hoofd (Linkeroever) (Madou) .jpg

    Zicht op Antwerpen vanuit het Vlaams Hoofd (Madou after Howen)

  • Vue de la porte romaine à Andernach (Villeneuve to Howen) 

  • L'Hôtel de Ville à Cologne

Publications

Pensées philosophiques
  • Nieuwe Reiziger door het Koningrijk Holland ... , 1809, together with Evert Maaskamp and Christian Portman
  • Relation d'un voyage en Espagne, dans les années 1811, 1812, 1813 et 1814, par un officier d'artellerie , published anonymously by D. Gérard in 1818, published in 2014 in the Cahiers de Sambre et Meuse , Namur
  • Vues pittoresques depuis Francfort jusqu'à Cologne. Paris: G. Engelmann 1824 (catalog description 2012: Elaborate sequence of views based on drawings by the English occasional artist General Houwen by Engelmann's experienced lithographic studio in Paris. - With views of Koblenz, Bingen, Rüdesheim, Östrich, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Siebengebirge, Godesberg, Cologne among others)

  • Egyptian corpses , Otto Christopher Baron von der Howen & Leendert de Koningh; Dordrecht: Steuerwald & Co., 1827.
  • Vues pittoresques des bords de la Meuse depuis Namur jusqu'à Dinant; du Trou de Han, et des environs de Rochefort; par un officier de l'artillerie , Namur 1830?
  • Pensées Philosophiques , 1835 in Nijmegen with DJ Haspels

literature

  • F. Courtois: Le général de Howen, dessinateur de Namur et du pays mosan , 1942 in the magazine Namurcum
  • JJ Hässlin: The Rhine from Mainz to Koblenz , Honnef / Rhine 1953
  • Bastin: Namur et sa province dans l'œuvre du Général de Howen , Crédit Communal de Belgique 1983
  • te Rijdt: Een Generaal tekent Nederland , Brussels 1991

See also

Howen (noble family)

Web links with sketches and drawings

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Genealogical manual of the Baltic knighthoods, part of Kurland, Görlitz approx. 1932, p. 314
  2. ↑ Genealogical Handbook of the Baltic Knighthoods (New Series) Volume VI Wanfried 2016, ISSN 2193-164X
personal data
SURNAME Howen, Otto Christopher from the
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Baltic soldier as well as artist, draftsman and watercolorist
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1774
PLACE OF BIRTH Rojel, parish of Bartholomäi, Dorpat district in the Russian Baltic Sea province of Livonia
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1848
Place of death Nijmegen , Netherlands