Xaver Hecht

Josef Eutykh Heinrich Xaver Hecht, called Xaver (* 6. August 1757 in Willisau City ; † 16th November 1835 in Vesoul ; heimatberechtigt in Willisau ), was a Swiss church painter , history painter and portraitist .

life and work

Hecht was the son of Johann Heinrich (1720–1805) and Anna Marie, née Frey (1720–1779), and grew up with his nine siblings in Willisau-Stadt. His ancestors had lived in Willisau since 1539 and from 1648 to 1905 they placed the Sigrist in a part-time position at the parish church of Willisau.

From 1778 to 1781, Hecht trained at the Académie de peinture et de dessin from Melchior Wyrsch in Besançon and then studied the works of Michelangelo , Raffael , Peter Paul Ruben as well as Carlo Maratta , Domenico Corvi and Anton Raphael Mengs in Rome .

Hecht married Elisabeth, née Bühlmann , in Einsiedeln Abbey on October 28, 1793. The wedding ceremony was performed by Marian Herzog .

In 1803 Hecht returned to Willisau and settled "at the bridge". In German-speaking Switzerland he developed a lively activity as a portraitist as well as history and church painter. In Willisau, Hecht created the altarpiece and the ceiling frescoes for the parish church of St. Peter and Paul, built by Josef Purtschert from 1804 to 1810. Hecht also founded a painting school, from which well-known artists emerged such as Lorenz Justin Ritz and his brother, the sculptor Anton Ritz (1800–1883), as well as the church painter Ulrich Fischer (1770–1859) from Triengen and the painter, drawing teacher and sculptor Jakob Schwegler (1793–1866) from Hergiswil near Willisau .

Battle painting

Hecht often made copies of old masters for Lucerne churches, for example the high altar painting Transfiguration of Christ by Raffael in Ruswil around 1789 and in 1811 for a side altar painting in the parish church of Willisau The Holy Family on the Flight by Carlo Maratta. From 1812 to 1814, Hecht created a new battle painting for the redesign of the Sempach Battle Chapel . In 1886 the old painting by Hans Ulrich Wägmann was restored and supplemented by Josef Balmer .

Hecht was represented at exhibitions in Zurich with works that were organized by the "Zürcher Künstlergesellschaft" founded in 1803. Hecht was present with Karl Pfyffer von Altishofen on the occasion of the discussion of the draft statutes for the "Society of Swiss Artists and Art Friends", which was in the process of being founded, in Zofingen in 1807 .

Hecht was a co-founder of the Lucerne Plastics Section, a subdivision of the "Great Society of Friends of Science and the Arts in Lucerne", which was established in 1817. The plastic section comprised painting, sculpture, building and gardening. This was the predecessor of the Lucerne Art Society founded in 1819. Altishofen was the first president of the "Plastic Section of the Great Society of Art Society" from 1819 to 1836.

Hecht often stayed in Freiburg in Üechtland from 1819 to 1824 . During these years u. a. two portraits by Jean Baptiste Girard . In January 1823, Hecht tried to sell a large number of his paintings and engravings through a lottery. However, this was rejected by the city council and the one hundred paintings and engravings remained in Freiburg after Hecht's subsequent departure.

It is not known whether the death of his wife or his disappointment over the rejection of his bid for the lottery in 1824 allowed the plan to leave for his beloved France to mature. In 1824, Hecht settled in Vesoul, capital of the Haute-Saône department , at 9 Rue due Chatelet, where he lived until his death.

Works (selection)

• David with the head of Goliath and portraits of the abbots, St. Urban Monastery in Reiden, 1780 painting
• Painting for the parish church in Ruswil, 1789
• Return of the Prodigal Son , oil painting for Haus Am Rhyn in Lucerne, 1791
• Two altarpieces for the church in Beckenried, 1793/1794
• Ceiling fresco, Last Judgment , parish church in Schüpfheim, 1807
• St. Philip Neri. People's Apostle and founder of the order (1515–1595) , oil painting for the parish church of St. Philipp Neri in Reussbühl, 1809
• Altar and round pictures for the parish church of St. Eusebius in Grenchen, 1812
• Ceiling paintings for the city church in Olten, 1812/1813
• Source miracle Moses , Moses with the tablet of the law. Ceiling frescoes for the Christian Catholic parish church of St. Martin, Solothurn, 1815
• The Holy St. James the Elder and Coronation of the Virgin , altarpieces for the parish church in Bösingen, 1824
• Three large altarpieces in the parish church of Port-sur-Saône , as well as another picture in the church of Filain depicting the church patron Saint-Antide, 1788/1789

literature

• Eugen Meyer-Sidler: Xaver Hecht (1757-1835). A Willisau painter in the 18th and 19th centuries Century . In: Heimatkunde Wiggertal , Vol. 40, 1982, pp. 71–111. ( Digitized version )

Web links

• Tapan Bhattacharya: pike, Xaver. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland
• Hecht, Josef Eutich Heinrich Xaver. In: Sikart

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sempach Battle Chapel. Sempach online, accessed on July 1, 2020 .