Anton Graff

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Anton Graff
Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna and the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
Patron(s)Royal Courts of Prussia and Saxony

Anton Graff (18 November 1736 – 22 June 1813) was an eminent Swiss portrait artist. Among his famous subjects were Friedrich Schiller, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Heinrich von Kleist, Frederick the Great, Friederike Sophie Seyler, Johann Gottfried Herder, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Moses Mendelssohn and Christian Felix Weiße. His pupils included Emma Körner, Philipp Otto Runge and Karl Ludwig Kaaz.

Life and work

Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (1781). This portrait is regarded as Anton Graff's masterpiece. Contemporaries claimed it was the best and most accurate portrait of Frederick the Great. It is the most famous, most copied and most reproduced portrait of the King of Prussia.

Anton Graff was born as the seventh child of the craftsman Ulrich Graff and Barbara Graff née Koller at Untertorgasse 8 in

Dresden Art Academy, about this. Marcolini reacted straight away. On 20 June 1789, Graff was appointed Professor for portrait painting at the Dresden Art Academy.[3]

Graff made portraits of nearly 1,000 of his contemporaries and was the leading portrait painter in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th century. Graff was also the main portrait painter of German poets between the

Stanislaw Kostka Potocki.[4] His most important clients included Catherine the Great of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia. His portrait of Frederick the Great is regarded as his masterpiece. The painting is exhibited at Schloss Charlottenburg.[5] Frederick the Great never posed for Graff. However, Graff received authorization to watch Frederick at a military parade in 1781. This gave Graff the chance to study the physiognomy of the King, and was therefore the basis for his portrait.[6]

Graff was also very popular with the

Ján Kupecký
whose works he studied in the collections of Ansbach. In comparison with the calmness of the ladies the gentlemen in his portraits often appear serious and reserved.

He also knew how to paint dresses and draperies of different materials and colours in a natural way. His role model in this field was the French court painter Hyacinthe Rigaud.[7] In 1765/66 Graff portrayed Elisabeth Sulzer in a blue silk dress with silver laces and fur collar and borders.[8]

patron of the arts and an art collector. Among others he collected paintings by Anton Graff. Part of his vast collection is at the Museum Oskar Reinhart in Winterthur
.

In his early years, Graff did hardly ever paint any background details in his portraits. He usually kept the background monochrome. However, in his later years he also paid more attention to the background. Usually he painted the sitter in outdoor surroundings, as was the fashion at that time in England. The price for a portrait by Graff was calculated by size and details of the sitter's clothes. That it was not always easy for Graff to portrait the famous of the time shows the remark he made while painting Friedrich Schiller: "He cannot sit still."[9] Graff was much in demand. He could live a comfortable life with his income.[9]

princely court of Saxony. This painting was sold at Christie's in London on 11 December 2002 as lot 75 in the auction 6652 "Old Master Pictures"
for £111,150.

In 1769 Graff met Philipp Erasmus Reich, a well known bookseller and publisher in Leipzig. Reich became a good friend of Graff. He engaged him to portrait his scholar friends. In September 1771, Graff travelled to Berlin and portrayed Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in Johann Georg Sulzer's apartment. Lessing's comment on his portrait was: "Do I really look that terribly nice?"[10] In Berlin Graff also portrayed Moses Mendelssohn and Johann Georg Sulzer, his future father-in-law.

In his later years Graff turned to painting

landscapes and developed further a sparkling manner of painting that anticipated Impressionism. Philipp Otto Runge and Caspar David Friedrich
were influenced by his work.

Graff was a sociable person. He cultivated friendships with many of his sitters, business partners and colleagues such as the Polish

Saxon engraver Johann Friedrich Bause
. Bause reproduced many of Graff's portraits as engravings. This made Graff's name and his artworks also well known within the general public.

Graff travelled quite often to

Prussian nobility and they were good customers of him. He never forgot how well he was received within the Prussian society. In 1778 he closed the short autobiography with the sentence: "Berlin habe ich viel zu verdanken" (I owe Berlin much).[11]

On 16 October 1771, Anton Graff married Elisabetha Sophie Augusta Sulzer, called "Guste".

landscapist), a fortune of 40,000 Thaler.[13] Graff was buried in Dresden
. His tomb does not exist anymore.

Graff was a prolific artist. He painted some 2,000 paintings and drawings. His paintings, especially the portraits, are much sought-after. Many of them are in museums and private collections in

National Museum, Warsaw
). The portraits of gentlemen outnumber the portraits of ladies.

In honour of their famous citizen the Berufsbildungsschule Winterthur (BBW) (School for Vocational Training) named their building after Graff. The "Anton-Graff-Haus".[15]

In Winterthur and Dresden there are streets named after Anton Graff.

2013 jubilee exhibitions take place in the Museum Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur, and in the Old National Gallery in Berlin.

Gallery

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anton Graff.

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Berckenhagen, p. 34
  2. ^ Berckenhagen, p. 12
  3. ^ Berckenhagen, p. 36
  4. ^ Portrait of Stanislaw Kostka Potocki. Archived 29 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Wilanów Palace Museum.
  5. ^ Berckenhagen, p. 119
  6. ^ Berckenhagen, p. 19
  7. ^ Berckenhagen, p. 13
  8. ^ Berckenhagen, p. 348
  9. ^ a b Berckenhagen, p. 32
  10. ^ Berckenhagen, p. 18
  11. ^ Berckenhagen, p. 7
  12. ^ Berckenhagen, p. 35
  13. ^ a b Berckenhagen, p. 38
  14. ^ "Art Museum of Estonia". Retrieved 15 February 2013.
  15. ^ Anton-Graff-Haus, Zürcherstrasse 28, Winterthur

Bibliography and catalogue

Further reading

  • Johann Caspar Füssli: Joh. Caspar Füesslins Geschichte der besten Künstler in der Schweitz. Nebst ihren Bildnissen. Orell, Gessner, Füessli. Zürich, 1769–1779 (5 Bde)
  • Otto Waser: Anton Graff 1736–1813. Huber, Frauenfeld u. Leipzig, 1926
  • Ernest Giddey, Fribourg (Ed.): Préromantisme en Suisse? Editions Universitaires, 1982 (Colloques de la Société Suisse des Sciences Humaines)
  • Martin Bircher u. Gisold Lammel, Zürich (Hrsg.): Helvetien in Deutschland. Schweizer Kunst aus Residenzen deutscher Klassik 1770–1830. Zürich, Städtische Galerie zum Strauhof, 1990–91; Schwäbisch Hall, Hällisch-Fränkisches Museum, 1991
  • Roland Kanz: Dichter und Denker im Porträt. Spurengänge zur deutschen Porträtkultur des 18. Jahrhunderts. Deutscher Kunstverlag, München, 1993
  • Jane Turner (Editor): The Dictionary of Art (34 volumes). Macmillan (London); Grove (New York), 1996

External links

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