Weirotter, Franz Edmund (Innsbruck 1730 – Vienna 1771). Ruin of an imposing ancient property near Rome still occupied in parts. Front right water, in the background before the Alban or Sabine Hills an aqueduct. Etching. Inscribed: F. E. Weirotter fecit / 10. 16 x 22 cm.
Nagler 4, 10. – Inscribed by old hand in brown ink “Near Rome”. – From the 12-sheet “First Suite of Regions and Fragments of Old Buildings” with Views of Ruins in and around Rome, Tivoli, the Villa Adriana, of Florence, Livorno (Leghorn), and Riccia, dedicated to the court and state chancellor Wenceslas Anton Prince of Kaunitz (1711-1794, ennobled 1764), count of Rittberg, protector of the imperial & royal Drawing and Engraving Academy at Vienna and collector. – Fragment of grape watermark.
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 would be bought willingly 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 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 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. 15,059 / EUR 148. (c. US$ 206.) + shipping
“ At this time we are on our boat … I hope you extend the same faith in me as I have in you in paying for this sizable sum in advance (sight unseen) in the expectation of delivery … Best regards ”
(Mr. P. C., July 22, 2002)