Landscape Suite
of Marvellous Atmosphere
Weirotter, Franz Edmund (Innsbruck 1730 – Vienna 1771). Suite de Paysages. Landscapes and river pieces during various seasons. With properties, villages, and partly many figures by land and by water. Set of 12 etchings on 4 sheets. Inscribed: Dessinés d’après Nature, et gravés par Fr. E. Weirotter., otherwise as before, + Dédié à Monsieur Wille, Graveur du Roi, … Par son tres (sic!) humble serviteur Weirotter. 9.6-11.9 x 18.2-19.6 cm.
Nagler 19. – One of the finest suites , dedicated to his teacher 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).
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 . ”
Catching the infinite charm of the flat country
the set here presented under four subdivided passepartouts. Finely to hang , too , piece by piece inside of wainscots or glass doors.
Offer no. 15,451 / price on request
„ Best her Niemeyer, De prenten zijn vanmiddag in goede staat gearriveerd. Alleen al het uitpakken is een genot! Ze zien er prachtig uit (vooral The Idel ’prentice is een juweel) … Wat dat betreft, zijn eigenlijk alle prenten die u mij hebt toegezonde, van uitstekende kwaliteit … “
(Mijnheer P. E., 1. Februar 2008)