Josef Anton von Gegenbaur (6 March 1800, in
Wangen,
Württemberg – 31 January 1876, in Rome) was an accomplished German historical and portrait painter.
Biography
He studied first at the
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
in
Munich under Robert von Langer, remaining in that city from 1815 to 1823. Among his productions there were two idyllic works, a "Saint Sebastian" and a "Madonna and Child", altar-piece for his native town. In 1823 the painter went to Rome, where he remained until 1826, studying especially the works of
Raphael. He became successful as a
fresco
Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...
painter, and, on his return to Württemberg, the king made him
court painter and commissioned him to decorate the Royal Villa of Schloss Rosenstein. In 1829 Gegenbaur went again to Rome and worked on frescoes.
During later residence in
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
he was employed from 1836 to 1854 in decorating the royal Palace with sixteen scenes in fresco from the history of Württemberg. These include incidents in the life of
Count Eberhard II of Württemberg. In the same building are many of his oil paintings, among them being "Two Shepherds", "Adam and Eve after their expulsion from Eden", and "Moses Striking the Rock". In the
Stuttgart Gallery is also his "Hercules and Omphale". His other paintings in oil, ranging in date from 1829 to 1860 include many on mythological subjects: "Sleeping Venus and Two Satyrs", "Leda and the Swan" "Apollo and the Muses", "Bacchus and Ariadne", "Venus and Cupid", "Ceres and Jason", "Aeolus Aeola", "Pluto and Proserpine", "Neptune and Thetis", several Genii and Amorettes, and some portraits. Among Gegenbaur's frescoes, in addition to those already mentioned, are "Jupiter giving Immortality to Psyche", "The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche", four scenes from the life of Psyche, "The Four Seasons", an "Aurora"—all at the Schloss Rosenstein. In addition to these works, we may mention, as well as various Madonnas, "The Ascension of the Virgin", "The Crucifixion", "Hercules and Omphale", the last in the Thorwaldsen Museum in
Copenhagen.
See also
*
List of German painters
Sources
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gegenbaur, J
1800 births
1876 deaths
19th-century German painters
19th-century German male artists
German male painters
Court painters
Academy of Fine Arts, Munich alumni