Theophilus Wilhelm Frese

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Focke Museum: Flora (around 1750)
Epitaph of Esquire Henry Voguel in Bremen Cathedral

Theophilus Wilhelm Frese ( Freese and Friese he wrote himself) (born December 20, 1696 in Bremen ; † 1763) was a stone sculptor and ivory carver based in Bremen .

biography

Frese - son of the pitcher (seal cutter) Wilhelm Frese - was baptized in Bremen. Little is known for certain about his training. His later, meticulously worked out small sculptures make training in his father's stone cutter workshop likely. A subsequent apprenticeship with the Bremer Steinhauer Johann Mentz is accepted. A trip to Italy is also recorded. A stylistic proximity to the sculptures by Johann Baptist Xavery and F. Duquenois suggests artistic contacts to Dutch artists. Like other stone carvers, Frese may have been involved in the trade in Obernkirchen sandstone (" Bremer Stein "),

Early works in stone have been handed down from 1721, the ivory bust in Braunschweig, referred to as a masked self-portrait, is dated 1726. From 1727 Frese ran a workshop on the Teerhof in Bremen, where he owned a "newly built house" as early as 1729 and in 1737 employed 20 people. In 1728 Frese was appointed freelance master by the Bremen council "because of his special art and skill" and entered the stonecutter office in 1732 in order to be able to keep apprenticeships, where in 1744 and 1759 he even became the old master of this sculptor's guild. Christian Romain, a sculptor presumably of southern Dutch origin, from whom we know some signed garden figures from the 1730s, was one of his journeymen until around 1738.

plant

Freese worked for public clients from an early age. There were also facade decorations and garden figures for the wealthy Bremen bourgeoisie. Some of his small ivory sculptures found their way into the art cabinets of north German princes (Braunschweig, Schwerin), but the majority of these works (as far as they are still preserved and known today) passed from his estate into the hands of Bremen after his death and remained as a collection together, which is now kept in the Focke Museum . Most of the figurines and small busts contain allegorical implications, so the putti can be assigned to the seasons; the busts of the old man and a young woman, made as counterparts, provide a striking comparison of the ages, even in a small format. In his other ivory works, too, the theme of age and impermanence comes up again and again, just as his putti display a strangely elderly, melancholy physiognomy. The following list only takes into account the works still preserved today.

Stone carving

  • Coat of arms of Mayor Hoyer on Bremen town hall , sandstone, 1721
  • Epitaph for Countess Margarethe Gertrud , marble, 1728, Stadtkirche Stadthagen
  • Frese-Haus , home of the sculptor, built in 1729/1740 on the Teerhof , Herrlichkeit 3, with the inscription above the door: “So geths in der Weldt” (broken off and stored).
  • Venus and Cupid in the forge of Vulcan; Justitia, Apollo and Minerva; The judgment of Paris; three marble reliefs from 1730 for a furnace base in the Bremen town hall , now Focke-Museum Bremen (foam magazine)
  • Sarcophagus of Georg Bernhard von Engelbrechten , 1730, St. Petri Cathedral Bremen, lead cellar
  • Roland Fountain in Bremen Neustadt, 1737
  • Market fountain (built as a double fountain in Baroque form) in Wildeshausen 1747
  • Flora (Allegory of Spring) , around 1750, Focke Museum
  • Two pillars decorated with seasonal reliefs , around 1750, Focke-Museum
  • Epitaph for Henry Voguell , 1754, in the St. Petri Cathedral in Bremen
  • 8 of the former 12 garden figures in the Exten Castle Park near Rinteln (private property)
  • Façade decor from 1755 at Markt 12 (branch of Sparkasse Bremen ): the decor comes from the destroyed Hoffschlaeger house, Schlachte 31 B.
  • Offering box from St. Stephani, Bremen (today in the State Office for Monument Preservation).

Small sculptures

  • The seasons , four alabaster busts, Focke Museum
  • Head of a beggar , ivory bust, 1726, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum
  • Penitent Hieronimus , full round ivory group, 1726, Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum
  • Christ , 1751 and allegorical half-length portraits , 1752, reliefs in the Landesmuseum Schwerin
  • Vanitas , allegory of transience , oval ivory relief, Lübeck, St. Anne's Museum
  • St. Hieronimus , ivory, State Museum Hanover
  • Bust of the Apostle Peter , ivory, Focke-Museum
  • as well as a number of reliefs, busts and figurines of putti, mythological and historical people (Focke Museum)

literature

  • Karl Schaefer : Theophilus Wilhelm Frese, the most famous Bremen artist of the 18th century . In: Bremer Zeitung , June 6, 1910.

Gustav Pauli : Freese, Theophilus Wilhelm . In: Ulrich Thieme (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 12 : Fiori-Fyt . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1916, p. 410-411 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive ).

  • Albert Schröder: Theophilus Wilhelm Frese as an ivory sculptor . In: Lower Saxony 29, 1926, pp. 657-662.
  • Rudolf Stein : The Sparkassenhaus on the market in Bremen . Schünemann, Bremen 1958.
  • Jörg Rasmussen: Baroque sculpture in Northern Germany , Museum for Art and Industry, Hamburg 1977, pp. 561–568. Addendum to this in: Yearbook of the Hamburger Kunstsammlungen 23, 1978, p. 207.
  • Andreas Kreul: "So geths in der Weldt . In: Kunst und Bürgerglanz in Bremen . Hauschild, Bremen 2000, ISBN 3-89757-063-7 , p. 158-163 (= publications of the Bremen State Museum for Art and Cultural History, Focke- Museum 102), (exhibition catalog, Focke-Museum. Bremen State Museum for Art and Cultural History, Bremen 2000).

Web links

Commons : Theophilus Wilhelm Frese  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ according to hs. Note from Johann Focke in the Focke Museum
  2. ↑ HW Rotermund, Lexicon of all scholars ... in Bremen, Bremen 1818, p. 129
  3. ↑ Jörg Rasmussen, Barockplastik in Norddeutschland, (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe :) Hamburg, 1977, p. 561
  4. ↑ according to hs. Note from Johann Focke in the Focke Museum
  5. ^ Adam Storck, Views of Bremen, Bremen 1822, p. 484 thought Romain was still the teacher Freses
  6. ↑ Hurm: Descriptive directory of the paintings and sculptures of the Kunstverein , Bremen 1892, p. 142
  7. ↑ JCBosse: Der Dom zu Bremen , Königstein 1989, illus . P. 69
  8. ↑ The attribution is claimed on the GenWiki page Wildeshausen
  9. ↑ The reference is based on an unpublished dossier (Focke-Museum, Obj.-akte 04881, by W. Dilloo, Düsseldorf 1990,) which also contains the archival evidence.
personal data
SURNAME Frese, Theophilus Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH baptized December 20, 1696
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH 1763