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Kristoffer
neville90
the foundation medal for Fischer’s Karlskirche
in 1716. Benedikt Richter’s cousin, the painter
David Richter the Elder, also left Stockholm at
the end of the seventeenth century. After suc-
cessful stays in Dresden and Berlin, he settled in
Vienna around 1705, marrying there three years
later as a Catholic. He found substantial success
at court, and remained in the city until his death
in 1735.8 The miniature painter, Charles Boit,
was a more transitory presence in the city. But
despite his short stay in Vienna, Boit painted a
large enamel of Emperor Leopold I. and his fam-
ily before moving on to London and Paris.9 The
culmination of this artistic bond between the
two courts is found in Martin van Meytens the
Younger. Born in Stockholm to a painter who
had emigrated from The Hague, van Meytens
studied both in France and Italy before settling
in Vienna as imperial painter from 1732, where he
painted a long series of portraits of the Habs
burgs
and upper aristocracy. In 1759 he became head of
the academy of art. This can be understood as an
acknowledgement of his position in the artistic life of the court. His critical reputation matched his
career: Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn, one of
the leading critics of the eighteenth century, ad-
mired him greatly and considered him an eight-
eenth-century incarnation of Anthony van Dyck.10
Carl Gustaf Tessin thus arrived in Vienna
in 1718 expecting to find a fairly large number
of compatriots and acquaintances of his father.
Heraeus quickly took the initiative to transform
this common background into a regular cor-
respondence, and even friendship, however. He
showed Carl Gustaf Tessin a copy of the Entwurff
in Vienna. Tessin described the work in full in a
letter sent to his father, who wrote back immedi-
ately, expressing great interest in Fischer’s work.
Although the book was clearly conceptually
complete – Tessin’s description lists every plate in
the published version, in the correct order11 – it
was not in a state that would have allowed him to
take a copy home to Stockholm. Rather, Heraeus
presumably promised to send a copy as soon as
possible, and this arrived in March 1720, one year
before the book was publicly available.
THE ENTWURFF EINER HISTORISCHEN ARCHITECTUR IN 1720
The recently-recovered copy of the Entwurff
sent by Heraeus to the Tessins clarifies many is-
sues surrounding the completion of the work,
but simultaneously raises important new ques-
tions about the development of the project and
Fischer’s plans for its publication. There can be
no doubt about the provenance of the book, for
it bears Carl Gustaf Tessin’s signature promi-
nently on the title page (fig. 1). Numerous char- acteristics imply that it is an early version of the
work, but one in particular links it to the Tessin
collections in the early 1720s, and excludes the
possibility that it was a later acquisition. In 1712,
as Carl Gustaf Tessin was preparing to go abroad,
Tessin the Younger published a catalog of his li-
brary and graphic collections. This was intended
in part to guide Carl Gustaf in his purchases
abroad, which would supplement and update
8 B. Holmquist, Das Problem David Richter, Stockholm 1968.
9 G. Cavalli-Björkman, Svenskt miniatyrmåleri, Stockholm 1981 and G. Lundberg, Charles Boit 1662–1727, émail-
leur-miniaturiste suédois, Nogent-le-Rotrou 1987.
10 C. L. Von Hagedorn, La vie de Mr. de Meytens à Vienne communiquée par lui-même, in: Briefe über die Kunst
von und an Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn, Leipzig 1797, pp. 213–223, as well as B. Lisholm, Martin van Meytens
d.y., Malmö 1974.
11 Two of the eighty-six plates were reversed in Tessin’s list. This is however a minor error, possibly a binder’s error or a
copying error on Tessin’s part. Conceptually, the work was in the form it would take on publication in 1721.
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