Michael Wening
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Michael Wening (11 July 1645 – 18 April 1718) was a
Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
n engraver who is known for his many depictions of important places in the Bavaria of his day, including cityscapes and views of stately homes, castles and monasteries. The work has great historical value.


Early years

Michael Wening was born on 11 July 1645 in
Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
, Bavaria, son of Balthasar and Katharina Wening. His parents had 13 children, of whom he was the only survivor. His father was a pork butcher and meat inspector. Michael did not follow his father's trade, but became an engraver. In the 1760s he was working for the Nuremberg publishing houses of Fürst and Hoffmann, where he learned to draw cityscapes. Wening left Nuremberg in the spring of 1668, and is first mentioned in Munich in December 1669, where he applied for work at the court as an engraver. At this time he converted from the Protestant to the Catholic church, perhaps because it was very hard for non-Catholics to find work in Munich. He married Anna Maria Mörl on 27 January 1671, and was given a permanent residence permit for Munich. In 1672 Wening was working part-time at the court as a quartermaster, arranging receptions and travel, and increasingly being called an engraver in court orders. By 1675 he was being called "court engraver".


Court engraver

In the years that followed Wening undertook small commissions for a number of clients. He founded a publishing company in the late 1670s and for ten years issued an illustrated calendar. In 1680 Wening made a copper engraving of the fireworks display for the 18th birthday of Max Emanuel, the
Elector of Bavaria The following is a list of rulers during the history of Bavaria. Bavaria was ruled by several dukes and kings, partitioned and reunited, under several dynasties. Since 1949, Bavaria has been a democratic state in the Federal Republic of Germ ...
. He now began to receive regular orders, particularly for engravings to illustrate the Elector's war victories. He made numerous scenes of battles in the wars against the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, which was trying to expand into Europe. These have considerable historical value. In January 1696 Wening began work on a four-volume ''Landesbeschreibung'' (Description of the State) that would depict all the important places in the Electorate of Bavaria. The work would include pictures and a description written by the Jesuit priest Ferdinand Schönwetter. The first volume covering the Munich district was published on 2 November 1701, with 358 engravings. The work proved much harder than expected, and financial contributions did not cover costs. During the
War of the Spanish Succession The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The death of childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700 led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, Phil ...
(1701–1714) Bavaria was occupied by the Austrians, a disaster for Wening as court engraver of the exiled
Wittelsbach The House of Wittelsbach () is a German dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including Bavaria, the Palatinate, Holland and Zeeland, Sweden (with Finland), Denmark, Norway, Hungary (with Romania), Bohemia, the Electorate ...
s, while the general economic difficulties meant that Wening got few private commissions. Despite this, Wening continued to undertake his most significant work at his own cost. In his last years he lived in extreme poverty. He died on 18 April 1718.


Legacy

Wening's heirs published the last three volumes of the "''Landesbeschreibung''". The Burghausen district with 117 engravings was published in 1721. The Landshut district with 245 engravings appeared in 1723 and the Straubing district with 129 engravings appeared in 1726. The work was published as the ''Historico-Topographica Descriptio'', with a total of 846 engravings of views of cities, towns, monasteries, palaces, castles and manor houses. It is probably the most comprehensive description of a European country before the modern age. Under his contract with the court, the copper plates are owned by the State of Bavaria, and are held by the Bavarian State Office for Survey and Geoinformation in Munich. Werning's engravings provide a record of buildings that have long disappeared, as well as interesting depictions of town life at the time. Although he sometimes presented an idealized view of the conditions of the buildings, Wening's pictures were generally very accurate and have great value for the historian of art and architecture. His views of the Bavarian monasteries accurately depict the
baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
renovations that had recently been undertaken.


Sample illustrations from the ''Historico-Topographica Descriptio''

File:Schloss Deutenhofen Michael Wening.jpg, Schloss Deutenhofen in 1700 File:Michael Wening Schloss Taufkirchen.jpg, Wasserschloss Taufkirchen File:Michael Wening Kloster Gars.jpg, Gars Abbey File:Michael Wening Stift Osterhofen.jpg,
Osterhofen Abbey Osterhofen Abbey (german: Kloster Osterhofen, also called Altenmarkt Convent german: Altenmarkt- Damenstift) is a former monastery in Bavaria, Germany, It is located in the Altenmarkt section of Osterhofen, a town to the south of the Danube betwe ...
File:Michael Wening Vilshofen.jpg, Town of
Vilshofen an der Donau Vilshofen an der Donau is a town in the German district of Passau. Demographics Religion The population of Vilshofen is predominantly Christian. In Vilshofen there is a Catholic Church, a Protestant Church and a new Apostolic Church. 78.3 ...
File:Jesuitenkolleg Ingolstadt.JPG,
Jesuit College of Ingolstadt The Jesuit College of Ingolstadt (german: Jesuitenkolleg Ingolstadt) was a Jesuit school in Ingolstadt, in the Duchy and Electorate of Bavaria, founded in 1556, that operated until the suppression of the Jesuit Order in 1773. The college was th ...
File:Historische Ansicht von Sandersdorf nach Kupferstich von Wening.jpg, Sandersdorf Castle File:Schloss-Affing-Michael-Wening-1.jpg, Schloss Affing File:Schloss_Fussberg,_Stich_von_Michael_Wening_um_1700.jpg, Schloss Fußberg in Gauting File:Schloss Nymphenburg 1701 - Wening.jpg,
Nymphenburg Palace The Nymphenburg Palace (german: Schloss Nymphenburg, Palace of the Nymphs) is a Baroque palace situated in Munich's western district Neuhausen-Nymphenburg, in Bavaria, southern Germany. Combined with the adjacent Nymphenburg Palace Park it cons ...
in Munich File:Wilhelminum München.png,
Old Academy The Academy (Ancient Greek: Ἀκαδημία) was founded by Plato in c. 387 BC in Athens. Aristotle studied there for twenty years (367–347 BC) before founding his own school, the Lyceum. The Academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic p ...
in Munich File:Wening weihenstephan.png,
Weihenstephan Abbey Weihenstephan Abbey (''Kloster Weihenstephan'') was a Benedictine monastery in Weihenstephan, now part of the district of Freising, in Bavaria, Germany. Brauerei Weihenstephan, located at the monastery site since at least 1040, is said to be t ...
File:Michael Wening Schloss Lauterbach.jpg, Schloss Lauterbach File:Wörth-a342.jpg, Wörth castle on the island of Wörth, Worthsee File:Schloss Seefeld.jpg, Seefeld Castle File:Schloss Herrngiersdorf.png, Herrngiersdorf Castle


References

Citations Sources * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wening, Michael 1645 births 1718 deaths Artists from Nuremberg German engravers