Johann Anton Ramboux

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johann Anton Ramboux; Pencil drawing by Carl Philipp Fohr

Johann Anton Alban Ramboux (born October 5, 1790 in Trier , † October 2, 1866 in Cologne ) was a German painter and lithographer .

Life

Youth and education

Ramboux came from Savoy on his father's side and from the well-known Cologne goldsmith family Welcken on his mother's side. Ramboux received his first artistic support at the Trier Citizens' School from his drawing teacher Christoph Hawich . In 1803 he recommended Ramboux to the former Benedictine monk Abraham, who lived and worked under his real name Jean Henri Gilson since the abolition of his monastery in Florenville , Luxembourg . Ramboux spent the years up to 1807 in Florenville. Another letter of recommendation took him to Paris as a student of the painter Jacques-Louis David , whose portraits influenced him significantly . There he was also a student of Pierre-Claude Gautherot and at the École des Beaux-Arts . Ramboux stayed in Paris until 1813. He then moved back to his hometown Trier for almost two years. In 1815 Ramboux was admitted to the Academy in Munich , where he became a student of the sculptors Franz and Konrad Eberhard for a year .

Italy travel

In the spring of 1816 Ramboux moved to Rome , where he worked until June 1822. There he soon joined the Nazarenes and made friends a. a. with Peter von Cornelius , Carl Philipp Fohr , Joseph Anton Koch and Friedrich Overbeck .

In the summer of 1822 Ramboux returned to Trier and settled there for ten years. During these years he created an enormous number of watercolors with views of the city and the Moselle . 16 of them formed the template for lithographs , which he produced and published himself in 1825. In the spring of 1832 Ramboux began his second trip to Italy, from which he did not return until September 1842.

In Italy, in addition to landscapes and folk scenes, he mainly made copies of Italian frescoes and mosaics from the 13th to 16th centuries. With the support of the later Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. , A group of 325 watercolors was purchased in 1840 and given to the city of Düsseldorf as a foundation. For a long time it was kept there in the Academy of Fine Arts . In 1872, 27 sheets were lost in a fire in the academy. The preserved inventory has been in the municipal art museum, today's Museum Kunstpalast , since 1913 .

Work in Cologne

Moselle valley below Trier, 1823

When a curator was sought for the Wallrafsche collection in Cologne in 1843 , the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow suggested Ramboux. In 1844 Ramboux succeeded Matthias Joseph de Noël . In 1854 Ramboux made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem , from which he benefited not only spiritually, but also artistically. He also made several lithographs based on his watercolors. He was still interested in his hometown Trier and its monuments, so he wrote in a letter against the demolition of the city-side gate of the Roman Bridge and demanded that its historic parapet be preserved.

In 1858, Ramboux was made the first honorary citizen of his native city for his numerous pictorial representations of the sights of Trier.

Johann Anton Ramboux died on October 2, 1866 in Cologne at the age of almost 76. A street in the Longerich district of Cologne was named after him.

Aftermath

As an independent artist, Ramboux found only a marginal place in art history; As a portraitist, he never got out of the shadow of Jacques-Louis David during his life, and he was also not particularly noticeable among the Nazarenes. But as a copyist - and thus also as a keeper - of the old Italian masters he remained unsurpassed for a long time.

Ramboux Prize

The city of Trier has been awarding the Ramboux Prize since 1961. On the one hand, this serves to promote young artists, and on the other hand, locally based artists are honored for their life's work. The prize was awarded every two years until 2010; it currently has a four-year cycle.

Fonts (selection)

  • Contributions to the art history of painting , Cologne 1860 (300 sheets)
  • Outlines to illustrate early Christian art in Italy from the year 1200–1600 , Cologne 1854 (125 sheets)

literature

  • Christina A. Schulze: Museum Ramboux - An Italian Style History in Copies by Johann Anton Ramboux (1790–1866) at the Royal Art Academy Düsseldorf (1841–1918) , Diss., Vienna 2011.
  • JJ Merlo:  Ramboux, Johann Anton . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 208-210.
  • Alina Dobrzecki-Langer:  Ramboux, Johann Anton. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 129 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Johann Anton Ramboux. Painter and conservator. 1790-1866 . Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne 1966.
  • Eberhard Zahn: Johann Anton Ramboux in Trier . Spee-Verlag, Trier 1980.
  • Nina Struckmeyer: Ramboux, Johann Anton . In: Bénédicte Savoy, France Nerlich (ed.): Paris apprenticeship years. A lexicon for training German painters in the French capital . Volume 1: 1793-1843 . De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-029057-8 , pp. 232-234.
  • Jens Christian Jensen: watercolors and drawings of the German romanticism . DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1992, p. 177, ISBN 3-7701-0976-7 .
  • Trier biographical lexicon . Landesarchivverwaltung, Koblenz 2000, ISBN 3-931014-49-5 , p. 353 .

Web links

Commons : Johann Anton Ramboux  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Letter from Johann Anton Ramboux, quoted in: Jens Fachbach: On the building history of the Trier Roman bridge after 1718 , in: Kurtrierisches Jahrbuch , vol. 2007, pp. 383–416, here pp. 396–397.
personal data
SURNAME Ramboux, Johann Anton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ramboux, Johann Anton Alban (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and lithographer
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1790
PLACE OF BIRTH trier
DATE OF DEATH October 2, 1866
Place of death Cologne