Weirotter – Schmutzer, Jakob Matthias (Schmuzer, 1733 Vienna 1811). Franz Edmvnd Weirotter Painter of the imperial & royal Drawing and Engraving Academy at Vienna, professor and councilor died May 11, 1771. Half-length portrait in medallion on a stone with the above inscription in German and surrounded by woody scenery. Etching. Inscribed: J. Schmuzer fecit, otherwise as above. 24.7 x 19.1 cm.

Heller-Andresen 19. – The woody scenery etched according to Le Blanc 47 by Weirotter (Innsbruck 1730 – Vienna 1771) himself. – On strong, above and especially below wide-margined laid paper. – Larger brown spot in the right plate and – here only limitedly perceptible – subject margin. Feeble small brown spots lower left below of the inscription stone, there in the foliage also rust spot. Isolated, mostly only weak brown spots in the white paper margin. – Fine impression.

Schmutzer , after the studies of architecture first active as construction draughtsman and painter in Preßburg, turned for further training to Johann Georg Wille (Upper Mill in the Beaver Valley near Gießen 1715 – Paris 1808), the “private representative of German culture in France” (Decultot and others, Wille Correspondence, 1999, p. 1). Returned to Vienna in 1766, he became director of the newly established Engraving Academy and court engraver the following year. Already in 1766 he recommended Maria Theresa the appointment to the academy of the still young Weirotter, his fellow with Wille, so that he could 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 “would have already 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. ”

(ADB XLI [1896], 520 f.).
Offer no. 15,143 / EUR  235. (c. US$ 327.) + shipping

„ Vielen Dank für Alles, liebe Grüße und schönes Wochenende von der Mosel Herzlichst “

(Frau A. B., 4. April 2003)