Simon Spitzweg

Simon Spitzweg (born October 17, 1776 in Unterpfaffenhofen , † December 1, 1828 in Munich ) was a Munich merchant and citizen . The father of the painter Carl Spitzweg suggested the establishment of the first girls' high school in Munich .

Life

Simon Spitzweg came from a wealthy family from Unterpfaffenhofen near Fürstenfeldbruck . Both his father (* 1753) and his grandfather (* 1706; † 1758) were called Simon Spitzweg and were innkeepers and postmen in Unterpfaffenhofen. Spitzweg's mother Anna, née Kirchmaier (* 1750 in Unterbrunn , † 1825 in Unterpfaffenhofen) came from a forest ranger family.

The aspiring merchant Simon Spitzweg settled in Munich, where he received citizenship in 1804. On June 30, 1804, he married Franziska Schmutzer (* October 8, 1782 in Munich; † May 7, 1818 in Munich), the daughter of a wealthy fruit wholesaler from the Munich upper class in the Munich Frauenkirche . Own and married assets enabled Spitzweg to buy a house on the corner of Neuhauserstraße and Eisenmanngasse, where he opened his company "Cloth, wool, cotton, silk and specialty goods, commission and shipping".

The cloth and spice dealer Simon Spitzweg belonged to the highest social class in the residential city of the young Bavarian kingdom. Like Spitzweg and his wife, she was almost entirely Catholic at the time, even though freedom of establishment in Bavaria had been independent of denomination since 1801 . Spitzweg spoke several languages, was an assessor at the Munich commercial court and member of the magistrate, later its head. In 1818 the city of Munich elected him as its representative in the Bavarian state parliament .

In 1819, Simon Spitzweg, as a magistrate, proposed the establishment of the first secondary school for girls in Munich. "It is undisputed that knowledge dress women just as well as man ...", he wrote in his application to the royal government from the "Local School Commission", "regarding the establishment of a secondary school for girls". The school, which opened in 1822, is the forerunner of today's Luisengymnasium in Munich.

family

Franziska and Simon Spitzweg had three sons. The eldest son Simon (born April 1, 1805, † April 28, 1829 in Cairo at the plague) should become a businessman and later take over the father's business. For Carl (* February 5, 1808; † September 23, 1885) the profession of pharmacist was planned, and Eduard - the youngest son (* April 20, 1811; † 1884 in Munich) - should become a doctor. With such a distribution of occupations - so the father imagined - the brothers could work well together.

The painter Carl Spitzweg later remembered a strict, successful “overfather” who gave his sons little freedom, had little understanding for art and did not tolerate contradiction.

After the early death of his first wife Franziska, Simon Spitzweg married her sister Kreszentia Schmutzer in the same year. She was the sole heir to the Dirty company, which thus remained in the family.

Simon Spitzweg died on December 1, 1828 in Munich. His widow married the businessman Hermann Neunerdt in 1831.

Web links

• The ancestors of Carl Spitzweg (PDF file; 432 kB) ( Memento from January 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
• Carl Spitzweg's youth