Wolf Ernst Brohn

Brohn's early work is the modeling work on the crucifix on Prague's Charles Bridge

Wolf Ernst Brohn (* around 1600; † November 1664 in Dresden ) was a German sculptor in the early Baroque period. In the middle of the 17th century he was - even before the development of the Dresden Baroque - "the most important master of his art form in Dresden".

Life

Brohn, who came from the Walther family of sculptors in Dresden , was a grandson of the sculptor Melchior Jobst and a student of Sebastian Walther . His father was Wolf Friedrich Brohn, Rottmeister in the electoral Unterguardia. He was promoted to captain and in command of the Königstein Fortress . He was sentenced to death for embezzlement and executed in 1610.

Sebastian Walther could have recommended his pupil and great-nephew Wolf Ernst Brohn to go on a hike to one of the bronze foundries active in Germany. From comparisons of works, Walter Hentschel concluded that Hans Reichle, who worked in Brixen in South Tyrol, had an influence . According to his own statement, Brohn was involved in the second construction phase of the pleasure house on the Jungfernbastei (first of the four Belvedere ) from the beginning (since 1617) . Brohn is said to have been given the prospect of the alabaster workshop there in 1646 , but despite good work results it does not seem to have been transferred to him at first. Regardless of interpersonal tensions, the painter Christian Schiebling, with the help of Wolf Ernst Brohn, directed the completion of the paintings in the pleasure house, which had previously served the court sculptor Walther as a workshop, after Sebastian Walther's death (1654). Brohn also tried to preserve the building and restore the furnishings.

plant

Brohn was involved in the design of several princely coffins that stand in the choir of Freiberg Cathedral. (2nd from left in the right row: Hedwig of Denmark)

Brohn did the preliminary modeling work for the crucifix, which Hans Hillger cast in 1628 or 1629 for the medieval Dresden Elbe bridge . Because it was supposedly too heavy and too expensive, the crucifix was not removed from the caster. His heirs sold him to Prague in 1657 . There it was placed on the Charles Bridge .

Coffins of Elector Johann Georg I († 1656; right outside) and his wife Magdalena Sibylle († 1659; 3rd from right)

The death of Hedwig of Denmark in November 1641, widow of Elector Christian II , who died in 1611 , required the manufacture of a coffin for a member of the Saxon ruling family for the first time in almost 20 years. The old type, which was last used in the coffins of the Duchess Dorothea , Abbess of Quedlinburg († 1617), and the Electress widow Sophie († 1622) was no longer used. In the invoices received, several Dresden craftsmen involved in the work are named, but it is not clear from them who designed this type of coffin. Based on evidence, Walter Hentschel concluded that Sebastian Walther made the design and that his former student Wolf Ernst Brohn modeled the small crucifix, especially since the latter “created the models for the almost identical crucifixes of the following coffins.” These are the coffins of the relatively short Elector couple Johann Georg I and Magdalena Sibylle (1656 and 1659) who died on each other , in which the decorative elements were significantly more opulent than before. All of the coffins mentioned are in Freiberg Cathedral , which served as the burial place of the Saxon rulers until Elector Friedrich August I ("the Strong") converted to Catholicism.

Epitaph of the Duchess Sophie Hedwig

Before the destruction

Figures in Freiberg Cathedral

Brohn's main work is the epitaph of Duchess Sophie Hedwig (1630–1652; 1650 ⚭ Prince Moritz ). It was located on the north wall of the choir of the Dresden Sophienkirche with bronze figures cast by Andreas Herold based on Brohn's models. Her coffin shows clear parallels to the coffins created in 1656/1659, so that Brohn was also responsible for it. During the Second World War, the bronze parts were moved to the basement of the Frauenkirche in 1943 . The bronze figure of Sophia was brought to Freiberg Cathedral in 1975, where the Duchess's coffin and others had already been transferred from the princely crypt of the Sophienkirche in 1950. The figures of the two princes stolen from Dresden in the 1950s were found in Bavaria (Moritz) and Schleswig-Holstein (Johann Philipp). The figure group has been reunited in Freiberg since 2002. Other parts of the epitaph can be found in various places in Dresden, including the inscription plaque in the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments , the bronze angels in the Matthäuskirche and the bronze crucifix in the Heinrich Schütz Chapel of the Kreuzkirche .

Another work by Brohn, in Walter Hentschel's opinion, is a serpentine baptismal font created in 1647 , which is located in the Church of St. Afra in Meißen.

Brohn's Piqueur statue at the southwest end of the terrace complex of Moritzburg Castle

For Moritzburg Castle , which was used as a hunting lodge , Brohn created the sculpture of a horn-blowing hunter with a dog in 1660. He received the order from Elector Johann Georg II , probably as a replacement for a statue destroyed in the Thirty Years War (1618–1648). In doing so, Brohn took up the type of hunter figures that Conrad Buchau created around 1646 for the Grillenburg hunting lodge . However, Brohn varied so that his hunter statue appears more detailed and in a more moving posture. During the reconstruction of the castle under Augustus the Strong , the figure appeared damaged in 1693, so that some work was carried out on it, including the addition of the Saxon-Polish coat of arms. The original location of this statue is unknown, it was not erected until later on the southwest corner of the castle island, supplemented by a statue created in 1732 on the southeast corner.

literature

• Walter Hentschel : Ernst Wolf Brohn, a forgotten Dresden Baroque sculptor. In: Scientific supplement to the Dresdner Anzeiger , No. 43, November 1, 1932, pp. 169–172.
• Walter Hentschel: The Prague Bridge Crucifix. In: Journal of the German Association for Art Research 6 (1939), pp. 267–282.
• Central Office for German Personal and Family History (Ed.): Genealogical Yearbook, Volumes 1–5 . Degener, 1961 ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Footnotes

1. ↑ life data after the entry in the Saxon biography
2. ↑ ^{a b} Central Office for German Personal and Family History (ed.): Genealogical yearbook . Degener, 1961, p. 77 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Walter Hentschel: Dresden sculptors of the 16th and 17th centuries . Böhlau, 1966, p. 93 f., 157 (also in this: Monuments of Saxon Art: The Losses of the Second World War , Akademie-Verlag, 1973, p. 59.).
4. ^ ^{A b} Walter Bachmann : Nossenis Lusthaus on the Jungfernbastei in Dresden . In: Woldemar Lippert (Hrsg.): New archive for Saxon history and antiquity . 57th volume. Verlag Buchdruckerei der Wilhelm und Bertha v. Baensch Foundation, Dresden 1936, p. 1–29, here in particular 23 f . ( Digital copy of the SLUB Dresden ).
5. ↑ Manfred Zumpe : The Brühl terrace in Dresden . Verlag für Bauwesen, 1991, ISBN 3-345-00207-8 , p. 45 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Walter Hentschel : The pewter coffins of the Wettins in Freiberg Cathedral . In: Woldemar Lippert (Hrsg.): New archive for Saxon history and antiquity . 53rd volume. Verlag Buchdruckerei der Wilhelm und Bertha v. Baensch Foundation, Dresden 1932, p. 51–72, here in particular 64–69 ( digitized version from SLUB Dresden ).
7. ^ Photo (October 1962) of the remains of the architectural framing of the epitaph of Duchess Sophie Hedwig in the Deutsche Fotothek
8. ↑ ^{a b} Epitaph of Hedwig Sophie should be completed. In: Freie Presse , February 6, 2002 ( online ).
9. ^ Eckhard Bahr: Dresden: With Meißen, Radebeul and Saxon Switzerland . Trescher Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-89794-156-4 , pp. 249 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
10. ^ Hans-Günther Hartmann : Moritzburg - Castle and surroundings in the past and present . Böhlau, Weimar 1989, ISBN 3-7400-0093-7 , pp. 35 ( limited preview in Google Book search).