Page - 89 - in Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, Volume LIX
Image of the Page - 89 -
Text of the Page - 89 -
Fischer von Erlach’s Entwurff einer historischen Architectur 89
posts only after reconfirmation by his or her suc-
cessor. The 1712 manuscript was certainly con-
ceived to curry favor with the emperor as recon-
firmation approached. It included seventy-four
plates, as well as a descriptive text by Heraeus
accompanying the first two books. Only sixteen
plates would join this corpus in the published
version. These added only twelve images to the
content of the book, however, since several of the
prints in the manuscript were not reused later.
Most of these represent Fischer’s subsequent
building projects, and cannot have been con-
ceived as part of the project in 1712. The contents
and structure were clearly described on the title
page, demonstrating that the historical concept
of the work was also clearly formulated at this
point. The question, then, has been: what hap-
pened in the ensuing nine years that caused such
a delay in preparing the relatively small number
of prints added to the published book? And,
more generally, how did the project develop over
this period?
Some insight into this question is now pos-
sible through an early version of the Entwurff
sent by Heraeus to the Tessin family of architects
and collectors in Stockholm.6 This volume was
sent to Stockholm following the visit of Carl
Gustaf Tessin, the son of the court architect,
Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, in Vienna in July
1718. While there, he met Fischer and became
a regular corres pondent with Heraeus. He was
well positioned to gain the favor of these men,
for his father had almost certainly known both in the later seventeenth century. Tessin the Younger
and Fischer had studied in Rome in the 1670s.
Both young architects had worked in the series
of overlapping circles around Bernini, Carlo
Fontana, Queen Christina, Giovanni Pietro
Bellori, and the Accademia di S. Luca (though
the last is more difficult to describe for both
men). Both, moreover, seem to have been part of
the much smaller group of students who worked
with Abraham Paris, a little-known instructor
in draftsmanship in Rome. The friendship with
Heraeus fell closer to home. Heraeus was raised
in Stockholm, the son of a court apothecary to
Dowager Queen Hedwig Eleonora, who pro-
tected and promoted Tessin the Younger from
an early age. The architect remembered Heraeus
fondly when his son wrote home from Vienna of
meeting him.7
Although Heraeus served as the main point
of contact between Fischer and the Tessins, he
was hardly the only prominent person in Vienna
around 1700 to have come from the Stockholm
court. The medalist Benedikt (or Bengt) Richter
left Stockholm around 1700, going first to Berlin,
and then settling in Vienna by 1713. Two years
later he was named Ober- und Kammermedail-
leur und Münz-Präg-Inspektor. This position
held a natural relation to Heraeus’s own work
as keeper of the imperial numismatic collec-
tions, but it also brought him into contact with
Fischer, whom he portrayed in a medal. (He also
portrayed Heraeus in a medal.) A fellow medal
maker from Stockholm, Daniel Warou, struck
6 The personal contacts and mechanisms through which this came about are discussed in detail in K. Neville, The
Early Reception of Fischer von Erlach’s Entwurff einer historischen Architectur, in: Journal of the Society of Architec-
tural historians 66, 2007, pp. 154–169.
7 For Fischer and Tessin in Rome, see E. Kieven, ’Il gran teatro del mondo.’ Nicodemus Tessin the Younger in Rome,
in: Konsthistorisk tidskrift 72, 2003, pp. 4–15, as well as E. Kieven, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach und die
zeitgenössische Architektenausbildung in Rom: Abraham Paris (Preiß/Preuss) und Nikodemus Tessin, in: Barock-
berichte 50, 2008, pp. 279–290. See also G. Bonaccorso, Un atelier alternativo a quello di Carlo Fontana: la scuola
del ‘misterioso’ Abraham Paris, in: Fagiolo/Bonaccorso, Studi sui Fontana (cit. n. 2), pp. 257–260. For Heraeus,
see A. Hammarlund, Ett äventyr i staten. Carl Gustav Heraeus 1671–1725. Från Stockholm till kejsarhovet i Wien,
Stockholm 2003 and A. Hammarlund, Entwurff einer historischen Topographie. Carl Gustav Heraeus auf dem
Wege von Tessins Stockholm nach Fischers Wien. Bildungsgeschichte eines Konzeptverfassers, in: A. Kreul (ed.)
Barock als Aufgabe, Wiesbaden 2005, pp. 93–108.
Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte
Volume LIX
Entnommen aus der FWF-E-Book-Library
- Title
- Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte
- Volume
- LIX
- Editor
- Bundesdenkmalamt Wien
- Institut für Kunstgeschichte der Universität Wien
- Publisher
- Böhlau Verlag
- Location
- Wien
- Date
- 2011
- Language
- German, English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-78674-0
- Size
- 19.0 x 26.2 cm
- Pages
- 280
- Keywords
- research, baroque art, methodology, modern art, medieval art, historiography, Baraock, Methodolgiem, Kunst, Wien
- Category
- Kunst und Kultur