Stephan Hawich

Stephan Hawich: Portrait of Peter Marx

Stephan Hawich (born April 3, 1753 in Koblenz , † July 11, 1827 in Trier ; spelling variants: Havig, Habig, Habicht) was a German painter and private art instructor .

Origin and education

Stephan Hawich was born the son of the painter Jakob Hawich (1719–1780) and his wife Maria Anna Kaltenheuser. The painting profession shaped his family for three generations. Stephan Hawich's son Christoph Hawich (1782–1848) was also a painter. In 1760 at the latest, Stephan Hawich moved from Koblenz to Trier with his widowed father Jakob. Jakob Hawich got a second marriage there, which resulted in three children. Jakob Hawich and his family led a modest existence as a painter and painting restorer in the girls' orphanage of the city of Trier in Hosengasse No. 208. Stephan Hawich received his first art lessons from his father. An advertisement published in the newspaper Trierisches Wochen-Blättgen in 1766 refers to the early fruits of this training : "There is a Mahler named Stephan Hawich here in Hosgass, who grinds portraits in pastel for a cheap price."

In the following nine years the painter spent a long time abroad, but there are no sources where he stayed during this time. In 1775 he was back in Trier and offered his services as a portrait painter and drawing teacher in Trierisches Wochen-Blättgen . In 1776 he married Catharina Brauer in Trier. The marriage had six children. Hawich was not organized as a guild in the Trier shopkeeper, he paid his taxes (food guilders) to the sender . Without buying his own property, he changed studio and apartment in the city center several times. His last residence was at 95 Pallastgasse, where he also died.

Master Habicht's painting and drawing school

Stephan Hawich's domain in Trier was elementary art lessons. Anyone who showed a little talent or needed basic training before attending art academies was given to Stephan Hawich. In addition to the many unnamed students, a number of nationally known painters were among his adepts. a. Anton Josef Dräger , who later studied with Gerhard von Kügelgen at the Dresden Art Academy and joined the Nazarenes in Rome. Also the pastel painter Nikolaus Lauer , who became court painter to Friedrich Wilhelm III. succeeded, was previously with Hawich, as well as the now forgotten painter and reformer of drawing lessons Peter Schmid (born April 15, 1769 in Trier, † November 22, 1853 in Ehrenbreitstein), author of several art theoretical writings and once sought-after society painter in Berlin. The best-known Trier painter of the 19th century, Johann Anton Ramboux , was not one of his students, contrary to what is often claimed. He was tutored by the drawing teacher Karl Ruben (1772–1843) who worked at the grammar school, probably due to family connections.

A rare contemporary document gives detailed insights into how the painter, who soon became known around the city as “Meister Habicht”, organized his art lessons. The aforementioned Peter Schmid studied with Stephan Hawich from 1782 to 1786. The daily routine was designed so that the student spent the night at home with his parents. For lunch he went to his patron, the Trier cathedral provost Philipp Franz Wilderich Nepomuk von Walderdorff , who also paid for the training. During the rest of the day, Peter Schmid was extensively involved in all work at Hawich: He had to carry water, wash beets, wait for children, rub paints - and also draw. Only a large number of traced hands, feet, ears, noses and toes in red chalk or black chalk satisfied the master. Hawich also tried to drive the students out of a fearful manner "in which no genius betrays himself" . “The work must be free and bold, cut and torn up, as it were,” is his often repeated motto. Hawich demanded this “ingenious line” even when copying large models extensively .

Traditional paintings

As early as 1776, Stephan Hawich had self-confidently pointed out the wide range of his skills with an “art offer”: “The painter Stephanus Hawich will offer all lovers of his art of painting large and small portraits with strange equality, as well as pastels as well Histories and Luststucken and church grindings, fresco grindings, as well as others in water and oil, if you wish, to refresh old, extinct pictures. All of this at a cheap price. "

At that time, Trier was more of a small town with around 6000 inhabitants and did not offer a favorable art climate, especially since the electoral court with its painters' colony resided in Koblenz-Ehrenbreitstein. In addition, portrait painting, which Hawich praised first, did not flourish until the end of the 18th century, when the growing bourgeoisie began to imitate the hitherto predominantly aristocratic custom of having themselves painted. The portraits that can still be verified today for Stephan Hawich date from the beginning of the 19th century and also go back to only one client: the merchant, large landowner and owner of the Trier porcelain factory Peter Marx (born January 5, 1763 in Trier ; † January 26, 1831 ibid). In 1809 Stephan Hawich had his first portrait of this man, painted in the middle of his rise, a characterization designed with realism. The best known, however, was the full portrait of Peter Marx, made around 1816/17, today in the Simeonstift Trier City Museum (Fig.), With which Stephan Hawich resorted to the tried and tested props of the rococo portrait in order to satisfy the factory owner and city councilor who were now insisting on representation. In front of a pompous curtain with tassels, Marx poses in the parade uniform of a captain of the National Guard (citizen militia) and enjoys this staging with an implied smile, to which the lion-maned dog at his feet, the writing gesture (with his date of birth) as well as the " Background information ”of the view of his property (Martinskloster and mill).

As far as the other areas of work of the painter are concerned, there is no evidence of works that could be classified under the offered history painting or the "Luststucke". Only three representations of saints have survived in the field of church painting: A St. Anthony the Hermit, signed and dated "Stephan Hawich fecit 1814", in the church of Hamm / Saar, as well as two paintings, one St. Veronica and one that have now disappeared Mother of God with child, both around 1800.

literature

• Christl Lehnert-Leven: The "Hawichs" and the Trier porcelain manufactory . In: "For citizens and foreigners who like elegance" - Trier porcelain , catalog of the exhibition in the City Museum Simeonstift Trier from April 9 to October 31, 2000 and in the Saarland Museum Saarbrücken from November 12, 2000 to January 14, 2001, Trier 2000, pp. 94-141.
• Elisabeth Dühr, Frank G. Hirschmann, Christl Lehnert-Leven (eds.): City history in the city museum . Trier 2007, pp. 116-117.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Diocese archive Trier, church register Koblenz-Liebfrauen, 560,159 (379), marriages 1732-1763 and Dept. 72,397, Fb2, Koblenz-Liebfrauen, baptismal register No. 4 1743-1761.
2. ^ Two advertisements in the newspaper Trierisches Wochen-Blättgen nos. 19 and 20 from May 8th and 15th, 1768, Trier City Library.
3. ^ Advertisement in Trierisches Wochen-Blättgen No. 8 of February 23, 1766, Trier City Library.
4. ^ Advertisement in the Trier weekly leaflet No. 1 of January 1, 1775, Trier City Library.
5. ↑ Trier City Archives, Wurringen Mapping, Church Book St. Laurentius, p. 331.
6. ↑ City Archives Trier, L 7/3 control list (Screen Food and Gulden) Trier 1784th
7. ↑ Diocese archive Trier, Dept. 72, 841 No. 18–21, Trier-St. Gangolf, deaths 1818–1850. The age of 79 years given in the death entry of July 11, 1827 is incorrect because Stephan Hawich was born on April 3, 1753 and was therefore 74 years old at the time of death.
8. ↑ Letter of application from son Christoph Hawich to the Trier Hospice Commission on January 13, 1821, in which the latter reports that his father u. a. trained the painters Dräger, Lauer and Schmid in art - Stadtarchiv Trier - Hospitals-Archiv D4, miscellaneous, folder b.
9. ^ Phillip Laven: biography of the painter JA Dräger . In: Treviris , 2nd year 1835, No. 5–8. E. Nick: painter Anton Joseph Dräger . In: Trier magazine , 7th year 1932, pp. 99–115.
10. ↑ Thomas Wiercinski: The pastel painter Nikolaus Lauer 1753-1824, catalog raisonné, St. Wendel 2004, p. 10.
11. ↑ ^{a b} Wilhelm Perschke: Peter Schmid. A life story . Essen 1837, pp. 10-13. The biography was still recorded according to the painter's own statements. Binder:  Schmid, Peter . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 31, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, pp. 689-692.
12. ↑ Guido Groß: Contributions to the knowledge of the life and work of the Trier painter JA Ramboux . In: Trier magazine , 53rd year 1990, pp. 335–354, here 336.
13. ↑ Trierisches Wochen-Blättgen , No. 15 of September 14, 1776.
14. ↑ The catalog of the “Portraits Exhibition Trier 100 Years Ago”, Trier 1929, shows under No. 106 an unsigned portrait of the hussar officer Johann Marx (1782–1808), a brother of Peter Marx, of which currently only an imprecise archive photo of the Simeonstift city museum is available; the attribution to Stephan Hawich (only because of the family connection) is not certain.
15. ↑ Catalog of the “Portraits Exhibition Trier 100 Years Ago”, Trier 1929, No. 105 b: Oil on canvas, 78 × 55 cm, signed and dated “Stephan Hawich fecit 1809”, private property.
16. ↑ Oil on canvas, 145 × 117 cm, signed "Hawich pxt.", Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, Inv. No. III 264.
17. ↑ Ernst Wackenroder: The art monuments of the district of Trier . Düsseldorf 1936, pp. 38 and 142.