Franz Xaver Winterhalter: To Karlsruhe and Beyond

"Portrait of a Young Architect, 
Probably Karl Josef Berckmüller"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"In the summer of 1828, Franz Xaver Winterhalter visited Karlsruhe and began to cement his relations at court. Karlsruhe was a political and cultural backwater, and the Grand Duchess Sophie must have found the presence of a talented young artist a distraction from the stifling provincialism of court life. It was no doubt at her instigation that Winterhalter was employed on Royal commissions, an early instance of his adroitness in cultivating the feminine interest at court.

Many of his commissions also served as the source of prints as Winterhalter capitalized on his skills as a lithographer to earn extra income. Although he came to Karlsruhe each year for a specified period, his base was Munich. He told his parents in a letter of 16 January 1830, 'We both keep painting portraits but otherwise nothing else. . . I expect I shall be coming to Karlsruhe in three months' time, but I am not yet certain. I still have to write and ask if I may come.'

Late in 1832, he set out on a long postponed visit to Italy, in part funded by Grand Duke Leopold, arriving in Rome early in 1833. No serious German artist could consider his education complete without a visit to Rome, the centre of a large, polyglot community of artists. Winterhalter had a number of friends in Rome. A drawing by the architect, H.W. Schüle, dated 4 March 1833, includes the painter among a group of convivial drinking companions. Winterhalter did not, however, share the fervent idealism or nationalism common to so many German artists in Rome. In matters of taste he leaned, by instinct, towards Horace Vernet and the French Academy, earning the nickname of 'der Französische' among his contemporaries. His introduction to Vernet came from the Count Jenison, the Bavarian ambassador in Paris, and the young German assiduously cultivated his friendship."

To be continued

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