Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Progress

"Sophie, Grand Duchesse of Baden"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Franz Xaver Winterhalter had arrived in Munich for studies at a momentous period of its history. The new King, Ludwig I, was a Maecenas* of the arts, intent on turning his capital into a new Athens. Architects were commissioned to design prestigious public buildings in the Classical style and artists employed to decorate them. Two of the leading luminaries of German art, Peter Cornelius and Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld came to Munich in the 1820s to carry out monumental mural schemes and their achievements raised Munich's prestige to unparalleled heights. Cornelius took up the post of Director of the Munich Academy in 1825, soon after Winterhalter had begun to study drawing and painting there.

In July 1825, Winterhalter received a modest and welcome acknowledgement of his progress. He was given a pension of 200 florins** by the Grand Duke of Baden in return for executing an annual drawing. Writing in the same year, he described the work he was doing:

'I have drawn a few other portraits, partly because I have been paid for them, partly because I had to do them out of complaisance and courtesy. But now I am going to work continuously at the portrait for the Grand Duke. By the 8 February he has to have it in the room. When this is finished I must attend the Academy and work diligently under the direction of the new director, Cornelius, if I am in time to have good references, and how necessary these are for Karlsruhe [the capital of the Grand Duchy of Baden]! For academic study is what really matters, and if in time I should wish for favour from the court, or an appointment, they would look for an academic education. So now we have to sit down and work like schoolboys beside a crowd of others. We now have one hour's lecture on anatomy every afternoon from three o'clock till four. We often have to tear ourselves away violently from our lithography, for although we are earning money, the actual learning is not making progress. When my drawing is finished for the Grand Duke, I will quite definitely paint both portraits.'

Winterhalter also traveled in Germany to look at works of art, and wrote sententiously, 'An artist needs to see other men's work if he would himself create.'  He had received patronage from the Grand Duke, Ludwig, but in the near future it would be the his half-brother, Prince Leopold, and his beautiful wife, Sophie, that the artist would owe his advancement." 

* a generous patron

** "In 1825, 30 florins could buy a pair of boots, and 60-70 florins could buy a coat. A salary of 4,000 florins was considered a very high, upper-class income. Therefore, 200 florins represented several months' to a year's wages for a skilled worker." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction, by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")