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| 1839 Portrait of Adolph Menzel by Friedrich Eduard Myerheim oil on canvas 42.7 x 36.6 cm Arte Nationalgalerie, Berlin |
Adolph Menzel was born in Breslau, Silesia (then part of Prussia), in 1815. His father was a lithographer and intended to educate his son as a professor; however, he would not thwart his taste for art. After resigning his teaching post, Menzel senior set up a lithographic workshop in 1818. In 1830 the family moved to Berlin, and in 1832 Adolph was forced to take over the lithographic business on the death of his father. In 1833, he studied briefly at the Berlin Academy of Art, where he drew from plaster casts and ancient sculptures; thereafter Menzel was self-taught. Louis Friedrich Sachse of Berlin published his first work in 1833, an album of pen-and-ink drawings reproduced on stone, to illustrate Goethe’s little poem, Kunstlers Erdenwallen. He executed lithographs in the same manner to illustrate Denkwürdigkeiten aus der brandenburgisch-preussischen Geschichte; The Five Senses and The Prayer, as well as diplomas for various corporations and societies.
From 1839 to 1842, he produced 400 drawings, largely introducing to Germany the technique of wood-engraving, illustrate the History of Frederick the Great by Franz Kugler. He subsequently brought out The Uniforms of the Army under Frederick the Great, The Soldiers of Frederick the Great; and finally, by order of King Frederick William IV, he illustrated the works of Frederick the Great, (1843–1849). The artist had a deep sympathy for the Prussian king. In one of his letters to Johann Jakob Weber, he said that it was his intention to represent the monarch as a man who was both hated and admired—simply as he was, in other words, as a man of the people. Through these works, Menzel established his claim to be considered one of the first, if not actually the first, of the illustrators of his day in his own line.
In the meantime, Menzel had also begun to study, unaided, the art of painting, and he soon produced a great number and variety of pictures. His paintings consistently demonstrated keen observation and honest workmanship in subjects dealing with the life and achievements of Frederick the Great, and scenes of everyday life, such as In the Tuileries, The Ball Supper, and At Confession. Among those considered most important of these works are Iron Rolling Mill (1872–1875) and The Market-place at Verona. When invited to paint TheCoronation of William I at Koenigsberg, he produced an exact representation of the ceremony without regard to the traditions of official painting.
During Menzel's life, his paintings were appreciated by Otto von Bismarck and William I, and after his death they were appropriated for use as electoral posters by Adolf Hitler. Private drawings and watercolours made of dead and dying soldiers in 1866 on the battlefields of the Austro-Prussian War are unsparing in their realism, and have been described by art historian Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher as "unique in German art of the time."
“In a word, the man is everywhere independent, sincere, with sure vision, a decisive note that can sometimes be a little brutal... While being perfectly healthy he has the neurosis of truthfulness... The man who has measured with a compass the buttons on a uniform from the time of Frederick, when it is a matter of depicting a modern shoe, waistcoat, or coiffure, does not make them by approximations but totally, in their absolute form and without smallness of means. He puts there everything that is called for by the character (of the object). Free, large, and rapid in his drawing, no draftsman is as definitive as he.”
Notwithstanding Menzel's professed estrangement from others, his renown entailed social obligations, and in the 1880s the poet Jules Laforgue described him as "no taller than a cuirassier-guard's boot, bedecked with pendants and orders, not missing a single one of these parties, moving among all these personages like a gnome and like the greatest enfant terrible for the chronicler." In Germany he received many honours, and in 1898 became the first painter to be admitted to the Order of the Black Eagle; by virtue of receiving the Order, Menzel was raised to the nobility, becoming "Adolph von Menzel". He was also made a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Royal Academy in London. After his death in 1905 in Berlin, his funeral arrangements were directed by the Kaiser, who walked behind his coffin.
Biography from Wikipedia
This is part 1 of 10 on the works of Adolph Menzel:
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| 1829 Presentation of Rewards to the Participants of the Festival watercolour an gouache over pencil on Bristol paper 44.5 x 56.9 cm The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia |
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| 1831 Portrait of Albrecht Achilles, Elector of Brandenburg lithograph on paper 13.8 x 18.4 cm © The Trustees of the British Museum, London |
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| 1834 The Broken Bottle lithograph 13 x 11.1 cm (image) Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA |
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| 1834 The Rocking Bottles lithograph 10.7 x 12.5 cm (image) Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA |
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| 1834 The Fleeing Year lithograph 34.1 x 21.7 cm (sheet) Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA |
1834-36 Denkwürdigkeiten aus der brandenburgisch-preussischen Geschichte "Memorabilia from the Brandenburg-Prussian History"
Twelve lithographs on paper:
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| Title sheet |
1834-36 Memorabilia from the Brandenburg-Prussian History:
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| Vicelin preaches the turn of Christianity around the year 1137 lithograph 33.4 x 37 cm |
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| Margrave Albrecht the Bear stormed the festivals Brennabor (Brandenburg), 1157 lithograph 32.1 x 37 cm |
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| Friedrich Graf von Hohenzollern becomes Elector of Brandenburg, April 18, 1417 lithograph 32.6 x 37.3 cm |
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| Elector Joachim II converts to Lutheranism, November 1, 1539 lithograph 32.8 x 36.5 cm |
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| Frederick William, the Great Elector, receives the hereditary homage of the Prussian Estates, to Königsberg, October 18, 1663 lithograph 31.8 x 37 cm |
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| Battle of Fehrbellin, June 18, 1675 lithograph 31.5 x 36.9 cm |
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| Frederick, first King of Prussia, anointed at Königsberg, 18 January 1701 lithograph 32.2 x 36.9 cm |
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| The immigrant Salzburg Protestants, 1732 lithograph 31.1 x 36.5 cm |
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| Battle of Mollwitz, 1741 lithograph 31.4 x 36.8 cm |
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| Battle of Leuthen lithograph 31.3 x 36.7 cm |
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| The Volunteers! lithograph 31.1 x 36.9 cm |
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| Victory! lithograph 31.6 x 36.8 cm |
Radierversuche
published 1844:
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| Plate 1 from Radierversuche etching on ivory wove paper2 8 x 20.5 cm (plate) Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| Plate 2 from Radierversuche etching on ivory wove paper 15.5 x 21 cm (plate) Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| Plate 3 from Radierversuche etching on ivory wove paper 10.5 x 15.5 cm (plate) Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| Plate 4 from Radierversuche etching on ivory wove paper 812 x 16 cm (plate) Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| Plate 5 from Radierversuche etching on ivory wove paper 10 x 15.5 cm (plate) Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| Plate 6 from Radierversuche etching on ivory wove paper 28 x 20 cm (plate) Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| 1835 The Five Senses lithograph © The Trustees of the British Museum, London |
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| 1836 The Game of Chess oil on canvas 42 x 42 cm Private Collection |
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| 1837 Consultation at the Advocates Office oil on canvas 37.8 x 28.8 cm Private Collection |
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| 1838 Day of the Hearing oil on canvas 29.1 x 36.1 cm Alte Nationalgalerie - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany |
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| 1839 A New Year's Greeting pen and black ink 8.7 x 11.8 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| 1840 Frederick the Great's Study in the Palace of Potsdam graphite 29.8 x 12.9 cm Kupferstichkabinett - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany |
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| 1840 The Artist's Sister Emilie black and white chalk Private Collection |
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| 1840 The Vest of August the Strong graphite on wove paper 13.3 x 20.7 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| c1840-50 The Artist's Fur oil on paper 38.6 x 44.5 cm Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen - Neue Pinakothek München |
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| 1840s Standing Young Man black chalk with white opaque watercolour on brown paper 30.4 x 16.5 cm The Morgan Library & Museum, New York |
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| 1842 Fields, Trees, and Sheep Grazing graphite 12.7 x 20.4 cm Kupferstichkabinett - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany |
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| c1842-43 House and Bare Bushes graphite 20.9 x 13 cm Kupferstichkabinett - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany |
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| c1842-43 Path Lined with Bare Hedges graphite 20.5 x 12.9 cm Kupferstichkabinett - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany |
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| c1842-43 The Schafgraben Flooded pencil 21 x 15 cm Kupferstichkabinett - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany |
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| c1843-44 Woman Sleeping oil on canvas 17 x 21 cm Alte Nationalgalerie - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany |
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| 1843-47 Hamlet and Polonius etching and drypoint on wove paper 21.9 x 17.7 cm (plate) National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| 1844 An Uninvited Guest watercolour, pencil and ink |
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| 1844 Dr Puhlmann's Bookcase graphite 26.9 x 21 cm Kupferstichkabinett - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany |
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| 1844 Head of a Bearded Workman in Profile oil on canvas laid down on board 40.1 x 29.6 cm Alte Nationalgalerie - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany |
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| 1844 Moving out of a Cellar graphite 13.1 x 20.8 cm Kupferstichkabinett - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany |