Carl Spitzweg
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Carl Spitzweg | |
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![]() Carl Spitzweg in a photograph taken c. 1860 | |
Born | |
Died | September 23, 1885 | (aged 77)
Nationality | German |
Known for | Painter, poet, artist |
Movement | German Romanticism, Biedermeier |
Carl Spitzweg (February 5, 1808 – September 23, 1885) was a German romanticist painter, especially of genre subjects. He is considered to be one of the most important artists of the Biedermeier era.
Life and career[]
Spitzweg was born in Unterpfaffenhofen, near Munich, Bavaria, the second of three sons of Franziska (née Schmutzer) and Simon Spitzweg.[1] His father, a wealthy merchant, had Carl trained as a pharmacist. He attained his qualification from the University of Munich but, while recovering from an illness, he took up painting.
Spitzweg was self-taught as an artist, starting out by copying the works of Flemish masters. He contributed his first work to satiric magazines. Upon receiving an inheritance in 1833, he was able to dedicate himself to painting.
Later, Spitzweg visited European art centers in Prague, Venice, Paris, London, and Belgium studying the works of various artists and refining his technique and style. His later paintings and drawings are often humorous genre works. Many of his paintings depict sharply characterized eccentrics, for example The Bookworm (1850) and The Hypochondriac (c. 1865, in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich).
His paintings inspired the musical comedy Das kleine Hofkonzert by Edmund Nick.
Playing Piano, an etching by Spitzweg, was found as part of the Munich Art Hoard.[2]
Spitzweg is buried in the Alter Südfriedhof in Munich.
Forgeries[]
In the late 1930s an art forgery case in Germany involved 54 paintings which had been passed off as Spitzweg originals. They had been painted by a Traunstein copyist named Toni who worked from reproductions and picture postcards. Toni signed the works with his own name as "after Spitzweg", but fraudsters later removed his name and artificially aged the paintings in order to sell them as originals. At the Stuttgart Criminal Court Assizes the conspirators were jailed for up to ten years for the swindle.[3]
Selected paintings[]
The Bookworm, original 1850, Museum Georg Schäfer. Two other exemplars exist.
Music-making Hermit before his Rocky Abode, c. 1856–1858
In the Harem, after 1855, Museum Georg Schäfer
The Poor Poet, 1839, Neue Pinakothek
Newspaper reader in his backyard, c. 1845–1858
The butterfly hunter, 1840, a depiction from the era of butterfly collection
The Letter Carrier in the Rose Valley, c. 1858–18
Gnome Watching Railway Train, c. 1848
The Attic, c. 1840s
The Hermit Asleep
The Painter in a Forest Clearing, Lying under an Umbrella, c. 1850
Arrival of the Stagecoach, c. 1859
The Serenade, 1854
The Intercepted Love Letter, c. 1860
References[]
- ^ Jensen, Jens Christian (2002). Karl Spitzweg, Museum Georg Schäfer. Prestel. p. 342.
- ^ "Photo Gallery: Munich Nazi Art Stash Revealed". Spiegel. November 17, 2013. Retrieved November 17, 2013.
- ^ Schuller, Sepp. (1960) Forgers, Dealers, Experts: Adventures in the Twilight of Art Forgery. Translated from the German by James Cleugh. London: Arthur Barker, p. 93.
Sources[]
- Murray, P. & L. (1996). Dictionary of Art and Artists. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-051300-0.
External links[]
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Wikisource has the text of a 1905 New International Encyclopedia article about "Carl Spitzweg". |
Media related to Carl Spitzweg at Wikimedia Commons
- Biography and selected paintings of Carl Spitzweg
- The Spitzweg Game Archived 2004-01-12 at the Wayback Machine
- Spitzweg Gallery at MuseumSyndicate
- Milwaukee Art Museum has a large Spitzweg collection
- German masters of the nineteenth century: paintings and drawings from the Federal Republic of Germany, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Carl Spitzweg (no. 87–90)
- 1808 births
- 1885 deaths
- 19th-century German painters
- 19th-century male artists
- Burials at the Alter Südfriedhof
- German male painters
- German romantic painters
- People educated at the Wilhelmsgymnasium (Munich)
- Artists from Munich
- People from the Kingdom of Bavaria
- Orientalist painters
- Biedermeier painters
- People from Fürstenfeldbruck (district)