On the Left an Aqueduct
directs the Water Pipe to the House
Weirotter, Franz Edmund (Innsbruck 1730 – Vienna 1771). Water Pipe at Mount Viminale in Rome. Among the different figures a laundress at the gargoyle. On the balcony over that another woman already has hanged up the washing to dry. Etching. From 1763/64 onward. Inscribed: 6 / F. E. Weirotter fecit. 16 x 13.8 cm.
Nagler 7.6. – Inscribed by old hand in ink “Aqueduct on Viminal Hill“ corresponding to the German title on the title etching. – Sheet 6 of the 12-sheet “Fourth Suite of Different Regions” with Views of Rome, Tivoli, Naples, Marseilles etc., dedicated to the Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria.
The representation of one of those legendary aqueducts
as most grandiose creations of ancient architecture .
“ (Then) far more developed we find the aqueducts with the Romans where they seldom were run underground, but mostly on arched buttresses, and belonged to the most grandiose creations of ancient architecture. The pipes were made of wood, lead, even leather, but mostly of stony canals. Normally the
pipes leading into the individual houses ( as here )
… were of lead ”
(Meyer’s Konv.-Lex., 4th ed., I, 107).
With Weirotter the landscape etching experienced a fine culmination and in 1766 Schmutzer, then director of the Vienna Academy, recommended Maria Theresa the appointment to the academy of the still young artist to take over the landscape subject there. According to Schmutzer’s report for the empress the artist in his mid-thirties made
“ with his etched landscapes
which were bought readily in England , the Netherlands , and Germany
4-5000 fl. annually ”.
The suggestion was accepted immediately by the Privy Council, because Weirotter otherwise “already would have a call to Saxony in hands”. But at his much too early death “his complete artistic bequest found no market in Vienna; it left to Paris. Connoisseurs and friends of his sheets
had to pay dearly for impressions of single sheets …
As etcher Weirotter counts to the most eminent artists … ”
(ADB XLI [1896], 520 f.),
whereby he “developed a truly astonishing activity on both the fields assigned to him (in Vienna), the landscape drawing and the etching,
and has given impetuses influencing still today ”
(Thieme-Becker XXXV [1942], 309, quoting Lützow).
His whole ability is reflected by the works after own invention as here. His admiration with the contemporaries follows from letters by and to Wille as the German Pope of Art residing in Paris. So Winckelmann on occasion of Weirotter’s stay in Rome “Mister Weirotter has made me … a present of own works,
which I reckon among the best of the kind
… This young artist will be a credit to his native country”. And in glance backward at the preceded Paris period of training with Wille (1759/63) this to Hagedorn in Dresden “He is so completed with drawing that his drawings look far more effortless then his paintings”. And as collector the Leipsic banker Gottfried Winckler “I have no doubt, that Mr.
Weirotter will deliver to us many beautiful after the Italian journey ”.
Quoted after Decultot and others as editors, Wille Correspondence, Tübingen 1999, pp. 314, 316, 318, each from 1764.
“ Weirotter – so Gerson, (Spread and Aftereffect of the Dutch Painting of the 17th Century, 2nd ed., 1983, p. 338 – worked also after P. Molijn, Jan van Goyen, Aert van der Neer – and Dietricy.
His own inventions are correspondingly Dutch . ”
Offer no. 14,828 / EUR 135. (c. US$ 184.) + shipping
„ heute kam ich wieder nach Hause und fand die Bilder vor. Sie sind wohlbehalten angekommen und in einem guten Zustand … Vielen Dank für Ihre Mühe “
(Frau E. K., 24. Juni 2002)