Josef Grassi (22 April 1757 – 7 January 1838) was an Austrian portrait and history painter. His middle name is usually given as "Maria", although there is evidence that it was actually "Mathias".Michael Lorenz

Wien 2012 He is also called "Giuseppe Grassi".

Life

Josef Grassi was born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, the younger brother of sculptor and porcelain modeller . Their father, Ottilio, was a goldsmith from

Udine Udine ( , ; fur, Udin; la, Utinum) is a city and ''comune'' in north-eastern Italy, in the middle of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic Sea and the Alps (''Alpi Carniche''). Its population was 100,514 in 2012, 176,000 with t ...

. Josef studied at the

Vienna Academy of Fine Arts The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) is a public art school in Vienna, Austria. History The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy modelled on the Accademia di Sa ...

. He felt that he was being unfairly treated there so, when he lost a competition for a travel scholarship to

Heinrich Friedrich Füger Heinrich may refer to: People * Heinrich (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Heinrich (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Hetty (given name), a given name (including a list of peo ...

, he took the advice of some friends who were Polish nationalists and moved to Warsaw. There, he became a teacher of Teresa Jabłonowska (a descendant of

Stanisław Jan Jabłonowski Prince Stanisław Jan Jabłonowski (1634–1702) was a Polish nobleman, magnate, Grand Guardian of the Crown since 1660, the Grand Camp Leader of the Crown since 1661, voivode of the Ruthenian Voivodship since 1664, Field Crown Hetman sinc ...

) and established himself as a successful portrait painter. When the

Kościuszko Uprising The Kościuszko Uprising, also known as the Polish Uprising of 1794 and the Second Polish War, was an uprising against the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia led by Tadeusz Kościuszko in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Pr ...

broke out in 1794, he was able to leave the battle zone through the mediation of Kościuszko, whose portrait he had painted. In 1799, he was appointed a Professor at the

Dresden Academy of Fine Arts The Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (German ''Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden''), often abbreviated HfBK Dresden or simply HfBK, is a vocational university of visual arts located in Dresden, Germany. The present institution is the product o ...

. He took two leaves of absence while there; one to

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...

in 1804, where he decorated a bedroom for Duke

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...

and, from 1808 to 1810 to Rome as a member of the

Accademia di San Luca The Accademia di San Luca (the "Academy of Saint Luke") is an Italian academy of artists in Rome. The establishment of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma was approved by papal brief in 1577, and in 1593 Federico Zuccari became its fir ...

. From 1816 to 1821, he was in Rome again, serving as the "Director of Studies for Saxon Artists in Italy". At that time, however, the

Nazarene movement The epithet Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th-century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive spirituality in art. The name Nazarene came from a term of derision used against them for their affectation of a biblical manner of c ...

came into vogue and his work was ignored, so he returned to Dresden. He received the Knight Grand Cross of the

Civil Order of Saxony The Civil Order of Saxony, also known as the Saxon Order of Merit, was established on 7 June 1815 by King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony. It was a general order of merit for the royal subjects of the Kingdom of Saxony The Kingdom of Saxony (g ...

from King Frederick Augustus. Grassi is best known for his sensitive portraits of women. In his later years, his style became less graceful and settled into a form of academic

classicism Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aestheti ...

. He died in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

, aged 80.

References

External links

Joseph Maria Grassi
by ''Digitales Belvedere'' of the Österreichischen Galerie Belvedere
Joseph Grassi. Portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (?)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grassi, Josef 1757 births 1838 deaths 18th-century Austrian painters 18th-century Austrian male artists Austrian male painters 19th-century Austrian painters 19th-century Austrian male artists Academy of Fine Arts Vienna alumni

Life

References

Further reading

External links