Franz Xaver Winterhalter: His Death

Franz Winterhalter's Grave, Frankfurt

"During a visit to the Frankfurt in the summer of 1873, Franz Xaver Winterhalter contracted typhus, as a result of an epidemic that eventually claimed sixty lives. The speed with which he succumbed to the disease suggests that years of travel and concentrated work had taken their toll of his health. He was rushed from the house of his banking friends, the von Metzlers, to the Diakonissen Krankenhaus, a hospital run by Protestant nuns, but all efforts to save him were in vain. He died on 8 July 1873. His disconsolate brother, Hermann, sent brief details in a letter to a family member: 

'He had not been feeling well for some time but he didn't go to bed till Friday when he had a burning fever, which brought his life to an end. It is a comfort for me to know that he was unconscious and I think without pain. I ask you to tell all our relatives of this so irreplaceable loss in my name, as I am at present quite unable to do it. I have to stay here to attend the funeral.'

Winterhalter lies buried in the cemetery in Frankfurt under an imposing tomb topped by an angel. Funds for the maintenance of the tomb have long since evaporated and the tomb is now maintained by the city authorities. By the terms of Winterhalter's will, his fortune of 4 million francs was divided equally between his brother and the children of his two sisters. One notable benefaction of 50,000 francs established a foundation for the support of youth of Menzenschwand, his birthplace, and two neighbouring villages 'who wish to learn useful trades, arts and sciences.'

In European capitals the news of his death was greeted with official expressions of regret, as of the passing of a court dignitary rather than a great artist. Obituaries were brief and few. Winterhalter belonged to an age that was rapidly fading from people's memories. The figures of the Second Empire whom he had chronicled had died or disappeared from public gaze. Few of those who had made him famous were there to remember or to mourn him. But the widowed Queen Victoria was one, and she poured out her feelings in a letter to her daughter:

'His death was terrible . . . quite irreparable . . . His works will in time rank with Van Dyck. There was not another portrait painter like him in the world . . . With all his peculiarities I liked him so much.'"

To be continued

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