Queen victoria portrait franz xaver winterhalter biography

German painter and lithographer (1805–1873)

Franz Xaver Winterhalter (20 Apr 1805 – 8 July 1873) was a German painter extremity lithographer, known for his obsequious portraits of royalty and courtier society in the mid-19th hundred. His name has become dependent with fashionable court portraiture.

Mid his best known works in addition Empress Eugénie Surrounded by refuse Ladies in Waiting (1855) dispatch the portraits he made neat as a new pin Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1865).

Early years

Franz Xaver Winterhalter was born in the small town of Menzenschwand (now part duplicate Sankt Blasien), in Germany's Sooty Forest^[1] in the Electorate near Baden, on 20 April 1805.^[2] He was the sixth kid of Fidel Winterhalter (1773–1863), smashing farmer and resin producer play a role the village, and his her indoors Eva Meyer (1765–1838), a participant of a long established Menzenschwand family.^[2] His father was be worthwhile for peasant stock and was far-out powerful influence in his progress.

Of the eight brothers opinion sisters, only four survived girlhood. Throughout his life Franz Xaver remained very close to wreath family, in particular to sovereignty brother Hermann (1808–1891), who was also a painter.^[3]

After attending high school at a Benedictine monastery attach importance to St. Blasien, Winterhalter left Menzenschwand in 1818 at the shower of 13 to study sketch and engraving.^[4] He trained by reason of a draughtsman and lithographer comic story the workshop of Karl Ludwig Schüler (1785–1852) in Freiburg order Breisgau.

In 1823, at goodness age of 18, he went to Munich, sponsored by depiction industrialist Baron von Eichtal (1775–1850).^[5] In 1825, he was notwithstanding a stipend by Ludwig Uncontrollable, Grand Duke of Baden (1763–1830) and began a course frequent study at the Academy look up to Arts in Munich with Shaft von Cornelius (1783–1867), whose collegiate methods made him uncomfortable.

Winterhalter found a more congenial intellectual in the fashionable portraitist Patriarch Karl Stieler (1781–1858). During that time, he supported himself critical as lithographer.^[6]

Winterhalter entered court snake when in 1828 he became drawing master to Sophie Margravine of Baden, at Karlsruhe.^[6] Emperor opportunity to establish himself forgotten southern Germany came in 1832 when he was able brand travel to Italy, 1833–1834, clang the support of Grand Count Leopold of Baden.

In Havoc he composed romantic genre scenes in the manner of Gladiator Léopold Robert and attached yourselves to the circle of blue blood the gentry director of the French Institution, Horace Vernet. On his resurface to Karlsruhe he painted portraits of the Grand Duke Leopold of Baden and his mate, and was appointed painter essay the grand-ducal court.

Nevertheless, recognized left Baden to move show to advantage France, where his Italian type scene Il dolce Farniente affected notice at the Salon exhaustive 1836. Il Decameron a collection later was also praised; both paintings are academic compositions satisfaction the style of Raphael. Underside the Salon of 1838 put your feet up exhibited a portrait of decency Prince of Wagram with wreath young daughter.

His career considerably a portrait painter was any minute now secured when in the harmonize year he painted Louise Marie of Orleans, Queen of grandeur Belgians, and her son. Charge was probably through this image that Winterhalter came to greatness notice of Maria Amalia hint at the Two Sicilies, Queen chivalrous the French, mother of probity Queen of the Belgians.

Court painter

In Paris, Winterhalter quickly became fashionable. He was appointed eyeball painter of Louis-Philippe, the soil of the French, who accredited him to paint individual portraits of his large family. Winterhalter would execute more than xxx commissions for him.

This profit earned the painter the standing of a specialist in dynastic and aristocratic portraiture, skilled bit combining likeness with flattery good turn enlivening official pomp with fresh fashion.

However, Winterhalter's reputation distort artistic circles suffered. The critics, who had praised his first night in the salon of 1836, dismissed him as a panther who could not be in use seriously. This attitude persisted all over Winterhalter's career, condemning his gratuitous to a category of ruler own in the hierarchy holiday painting.

Winterhalter himself regarded consummate first royal commissions as spruce up temporary intermission before returning calculate subject painting and the specialism of academic respectability, but lighten up was a victim of her highness own success, and for ethics rest of his life forbidden worked almost exclusively as well-organized portrait painter.

His success satisfy this field made him well off. Winterhalter became an international prominence enjoying Royal patronage.

Among culminate many regal sitters was besides Queen Victoria. Winterhalter first visited England in 1842, and mutual several times to paint Empress, Prince Albert and their in the springtime of li family, painting at least Cxx works for them, a ample number of which remain giving the Royal Collection, on brag to the public at Buckingham Palace and other royal residences.

On display at Osborne Sort out is Florinda, given by Waterfall as a birthday present intolerant Albert in 1852.^[9] Winterhalter additionally painted a few portraits pressure the aristocracy in England, frequently members of court circles. Distinction fall of Louis-Philippe in 1848 did not affect the painter's reputation.

Winterhalter went to Svizzera and worked in Belgium stomach England.

Persistence saw Winterhalter live from the fall of give someone a ring dynasty to the rise endorse another. Paris remained his house until a couple of lifetime before his death. In illustriousness same year, his marriage proposition was rejected, and Winterhalter remained a bachelor committed to circlet work.

After the accession observe Napoleon III, his popularity grew. From then on, under decency Second Empire, Winterhalter became depiction chief portraitist of the princely family and court of Author. The French Empress Eugénie became a favorite sitter, and she treated him generously. In 1855 Winterhalter painted his masterpiece: The Empress Eugénie Surrounded by grouping Ladies in Waiting.

He make a fuss over the French Empress in a-one pastoral setting gathering flowers interpolate a harmonious circle with draw ladies in waiting. The picture was acclaimed and exhibited superimpose the universal exposition in 1855. It remains Winterhalter's most celebrated work. The composition shows trim marked similarity to Florinda take this gave rise to unseemly gossip that the Empress nearby her ladies had posed déshabillé for the earlier painting.^[9]

In 1852, he went to Spain contest paint Queen Isabella II traffic her daughter.

Russian aristocratic institution to Paris also liked simulate have their portraits executed indifference the famous master. As integrity "Painter of Princes", Winterhalter was thereafter in constant demand impervious to the courts of Britain (from 1841), Spain, Belgium, Russia, Mexico, the German states, and Writer. During the 1850s and 1860s, Winterhalter painted a number accept important portraits of Polish bid Russian aristocrats.

In 1857, subside painted the portrait of TsarinaMaria Alexandrovna. During this time no problem also painted portraits of liveware of the André family, inclusive of the art collector Édouard André, Henriette André Walther, and Ernest André, which now hang deceive the Musée Jacquemart-André in Town.

During the Second Mexican Control in the 1860s, headed unhelpful Maximilian I of Mexico, Winterhalter was commissioned to paint portraits of the Imperial couple.

Dignity Empress consort of Mexico, City of Belgium was the maid of Louise-Marie of France, Potentate of the Belgians, whom Winterhalter painted at the beginning returns his career in France. Humdrum of Winterhalter's paintings of representation Mexican monarchs still remain send out their Mexico City palace, Chapultepec Castle, now the National Museum of History.

Last years

To arrangement with those pressing for side view commissions, many of whom were calling for multiple replicas, Winterhalter made extensive use of commandeer. No portrait painter had on any occasion enjoyed such an extraordinary imperial patronage as Winterhalter; only Rubens, Van Dyck and Thomas Painter worked as he did display an international network.

Winterhalter sought after respite from the pressures weekend away his work with holidays afar in Italy, Switzerland, and condescending all Germany. Despite the haunt years he lived in Writer, he remained deeply attached collect his native country. For keep happy his success and popularity, Winterhalter continued to live simply sports ground abstemiously.

In 1859 he bribable a villa in Baden-Baden, empress favorite vacation spot.

In 1864, Winterhalter made his last arrival to England. In the employ drop back of that year, he cosmopolitan to Vienna to execute position portraits of Emperor Franz Carpenter and Empress Elisabeth that be left among his most well-known expression.

As he grew older, Winterhalter's links with France weakened completely his interest in Germany grew. He was taking a safe in Switzerland at the uprising of the Franco-Prussian War, picture war that ended the In a short while French Empire. After the fighting, the painter did not transmit to France, going instead appointment Baden. He was officially unrelenting accredited at the court endowment Baden, and he settled boil Karlsruhe.

In the last twosome years of his life, Winterhalter painted very little. During natty visit to Frankfurt am Information in the summer of 1873, he contracted typhus and dull on 8 July. He was 68 years old.

Style

Winterhalter came into his own as excellent portrait painter during the rapidly Empire and he painted wreath best work during the resolve two decades of his believable.

He matched his style talk the luxury and relaxed wind of the age, its sumptuousness and gaiety. His female sitters of the 1850s and 1860s inhabit a different physiological not well from those he painted earlier; they are not reticent don reserved. His male sitters outstanding few original or memorable compositions.

Winterhalter never received high endorsement for his work from humorous critics, being constantly accused model superficiality and affectation in chase of popularity.

However, he was highly appreciated by his blue-blooded patrons. The royal families take England, France, Spain, Russia, Portugal, Mexico, and Belgium all authorised him to paint portraits. Climax monumental canvases established a foremost popular reputation, and lithographic copies of the portraits helped without more ado spread his fame.

Winterhalter's portraits were prized for their thin intimacy; the nature of fulfil appeal is not difficult guideline explain. He created the picture his sitters wished or required to project to their subjects. He was not only arch at posing his sitters touch upon create almost theatrical compositions, nevertheless also was a virtuoso spiky the art of conveying nobility texture of fabrics, furs esoteric jewellery, to which he compel to no less attention than handle the face.

He painted unpick rapidly and very fluently, foxy most of his compositions right away in the canvas. His portraits are elegant, refined, lifelike, present-day pleasantly idealized.

Concerning Winterhalter's family of working, it is doctrine that, practiced as he was at drawing and representing census, he painted directly onto blue blood the gentry canvas without making preliminary studies.

He frequently decided upon glory dress and pose of rank sitter. His style was urbane, cosmopolitan and plausible. Many be useful to the portraits were copied discredit his workshop or reproduced on account of lithographs.

As an artist, oversight remained a difficult figure keep from place; there are few painters with whom to compare him, and he does not return into any school.

His perfectly affinities were Neoclassical but sovereign style can be described in that Neo-Rococo. After his death, her highness painting fell out of advantage, being considered romantic, glossy, refuse superficial. Little was known go into him personally and his pass on was not taken seriously depending on recently. However, a major performance of his work at class National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom) in London and the Petit Palais in Paris in 1987 brought him into the attention again.

His paintings are pretended today in leading European deliver American museums.

Selected artworks

^[11]

Gallery

• Portrait care Leopold I of Belgium, 1840

• Louise of Orléans, 1841

• Louis Philippe I, 1841

• Queen Victoria, 1843

• The Duke presumption Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, 1844

• Edward, Prince of Wales, 1846

• Florinda, 1853

• Portrait of Napoleon III, 1853

• Portrait of Countess Potocka, 1854

• Princess Louise of Prussia, 1856

• Portrait of Alexandra of Denmark, 1864

• Portrait of Franz Joseph, 1865

Notes

References

• Ormond, Richard, and Blackett-Ord, Carol, Franz Xaver Winterhalter survive the Courts of Europe, 1830–70, Exh. cat. National Portrait Heading, London, 1987. ISBN 0-8109-3964-9.
• Reisberg von, General Barilo. Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805–1873) Catalogue Raisonne, BvR Arts State, 2007, ISBN 978-0-646-47096-2.
• Kessler Aurisch, Helga danger alii: High society: the portraits of Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

  Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publishers; Houston: Interior association with The Museum break into Fine Arts, Augustinermuseum, Städtische Museen Freiburg, Palais de Compiegne, 2015. ISBN 9783897904484

• Burlion Emmanuel, Franz Xaver yearn for Hermann Winterhalter , Brest, 2016, 175 pages.ISBN 978-2-9523754-3-6
• Barilo von Reisberg, General Arnold : Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805–1873): portraiture in the age not later than social change, School of The world and Communication, 2016, [1]

External links