Weirotter, Franz Edmund (Innsbruck 1730 – Vienna 1771). At the Lake near Bolzano (Lake Bolsena). In front on an elevation the angler lying comfortably, the rod cast out far, and accompanied by the wife’s and eager youngster’s honest good fishing! On the right mighty rock formation. Etching. 12.1 x 18.1 cm.

Nagler VII/12. – The closing sheet of the Fourth Set of Diverse Sceneries, already worked at the time of his Vienna professorship (1767) and dedicated to Maria Anna archduchess of Austria. – Very fine more preceding impression on separate sheet of heavy laid paper and by this with margins top + below 4 and 5.7 resp., laterally 6.4-7.2 cm wide. – Before the (utter) removal of signature/monogram in the center directly below of the subject where elsewhere frequently the inscription “F. E. Weirotter fecit” can be found. Clearly visible here just a “W”, however, and that in the varying style of Nagler, Monogramists, V, 1468 (“excellently etched sheets … some of which are inscribed with F. E. W., others with just the letter W.”) as especially true for the very small-sized sheets. Yet a following “eirotter” might have been erased, not anymore though a “fecit” as also possible remains before the W do not allow for an “F. E.”.

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

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

(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 art pope residing in Paris. So Winckelmann on occasion of Weirotter’s stay in Rome “Mister Weirotter has made me … a present with 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  voyage ”.

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 17^th Century, 2^nd 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. 15,033 / EUR  125. (c. US$ 162.) + shipping

– – – The same in deep impression from the yet not cleansed plate from the 1771 memorial edition by Pierre François Basan. – After utter removal of signature/monogram, otherwise on also heavy laid paper of inevitably less wide margins of just 1.5-4 cm.
Offer no. 15,035 / EUR  89. (c. US$ 115.) + shipping

– – – The same as before in a more lucid impression from the otherwise already cleaner plate with margins 1.5-2.3 cm wide.
Offer no. 15,034 / EUR  79. (c. US$ 102.) + shipping

“ Thank you Mr. Niemeyer – I will take it! … It should look very nice in my new office. Best regards ”

(Mr. J. R. L., January 6, 2006)