Johann Wilhelm Beyer

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Johann Christian Wilhelm Beyer portrayed by his wife Gabrielle nee Bertrand, 1775 Johann Christian Wilhelm Beyer (1725-1796) portrayed in c.1775 by his wife Gabrielle nee Bertrand.jpg
Johann Christian Wilhelm Beyer portrayed by his wife Gabrielle née Bertrand, 1775

Johann Wilhelm Beyer (27 December 1725 in Gotha, † 23 March 1796 in Hietzing), a German sculptor, porcelain artist, painter and garden designer. Beyer has the largest share in the design of the gardens and statues of Schönbrunn Palace, which is regarded as his masterpiece.

Schönbrunn Palace building in Vienna, Austria

Schönbrunn Palace was the main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers, located in Hietzing, Vienna. The 1,441-room Baroque palace is one of the most important architectural, cultural, and historical monuments in the country. Since the mid-1950s it has been a major tourist attraction. The history of the palace and its vast gardens spans over 300 years, reflecting the changing tastes, interests, and aspirations of successive Habsburg monarchs.

Contents

Youth and studies

Beyer was trained as a garden-engineer early on by his father Johann Nicholas Beyer, who was a gardener in the service of Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg.

Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg Duke of Württemberg

Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg, was the eldest son, and successor, of Charles Alexander; his mother was Princess Maria Augusta of Thurn and Taxis.

Between 1748 and 1751, Beyer traveled to Paris where he studied architecture and painting. Later he went to Rome where he tried the study of painting, but turned to sculpture after he participated in excavations of ancient statues.

Model champion in Ludwigsburg

After returning to Stuttgart in 1759 Beyer worked as ducal Württemberg court painter to 1767 and as a model master of porcelain in Ludwigsburg.

Stuttgart Place in Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Stuttgart is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Stuttgart is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known locally as the "Stuttgart Cauldron." It lies an hour from the Swabian Jura and the Black Forest. Its urban area has a population of 609,219, making it the sixth largest city in Germany. 2.7 million people live in the city's administrative region and another 5.3 million people in its metropolitan area, making it the fourth largest metropolitan area in Germany. The city and metropolitan area are consistently ranked among the top 20 European metropolitan areas by GDP; Mercer listed Stuttgart as 21st on its 2015 list of cities by quality of living, innovation agency 2thinknow ranked the city 24th globally out of 442 cities and the Globalization and World Cities Research Network ranked the city as a Beta-status world city in their 2014 survey.

Ludwigsburg Place in Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Ludwigsburg is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) north of Stuttgart city centre, near the river Neckar. It is the largest and primary city of the Ludwigsburg district with about 88,000 inhabitants. It is situated within the Stuttgart Region, and the district is part of the administrative region (Regierungsbezirk) of Stuttgart.

Goes to Vienna

After Beyer had left the Duke's service in February 1767, he moved to Vienna. Already in 1768 he was a member of the Imperial Academy. He was hired in 1769 at the court and promoted in 1770 to imperial court painter, statuarius (sculptor) and chamber architect. Beyer's reputation as an artist, however was offset by his egotism. He reportedly undercut his competition, leaving him very unpopular with fellow artists and staff.

Academy of Fine Arts Vienna art school in Vienna, Austria

The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is a public art school of higher education in Vienna, Austria. The Academy is famous outside the arts community for rejecting Adolf Hitler twice, because of his "unfitness for painting".

He married in 1771 the painter Gabriele Bertrand, daughter of the captain of Schönbrunn Palace, and an art teacher of the Archduchess Marie Caroline and Marie Antoinette, and one of the few female members of the Academy. In 1778 he purchased a house in Hietzing.

Maria Carolina of Austria Archduke of Austria

Maria Carolina of Austria was Queen of Naples and Sicily as the wife of King Ferdinand IV & III. As de facto ruler of her husband's kingdoms, Maria Carolina oversaw the promulgation of many reforms, including the revocation of the ban on Freemasonry, the enlargement of the navy under her favourite, John Acton, 6th Baronet, and the expulsion of Spanish influence. She was a proponent of enlightened absolutism until the advent of the French Revolution, when, in order to prevent its ideas gaining currency, she made Naples a police state.

Marie Antoinette Last Queen of France prior to the French Revolution

Marie Antoinette was the last Queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an Archduchess of Austria and was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. She became Dauphine of France in May 1770 at age 14 upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne. On 10 May 1774, her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI and she assumed the title Queen of France and Navarre, which she held until September 1791, when she became Queen of the French as the French Revolution proceeded, a title that she held until 21 September 1792.

Hietzing 13th District of Vienna in Austria

Hietzing is the 13th municipal District of Vienna. It is located west of the central districts, west of Meidling. Hietzing is a heavily populated urban area with many residential buildings, but also contains large areas of the Vienna Woods, along with Schönbrunn Palace.

In 1779 Beyer's two-volume engraving plant in Austria created a stir because the imagery and architecture were foreign to most. He documented the detailed explanations with references to the mythological sources of mythology (Virgil, Ovid, Plutarch and contemporary encyclopedias). After completing work for Schönbrunn and after the death of his patroness Maria Theresa in 1780, he went back to garden design. In work dating from 1784 he influences German garden and landscape design, pushing for a middle ground between the English and French garden design.

Virgil 1st-century BC Roman poet

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He wrote three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, are sometimes attributed to him.

Ovid Roman poet

Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists. He enjoyed enormous popularity, but, in one of the mysteries of literary history, was sent by Augustus into exile in a remote province on the Black Sea, where he remained until his death. Ovid himself attributes his exile to carmen et error, "a poem and a mistake", but his discretion in discussing the causes has resulted in much speculation among scholars.

Plutarch Ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Plutarch, later named, upon becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, was a Greek biographer and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist. Plutarch's surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers.

Beyers divorced Gabriele Bertrand in 1785. In the same year he wrote the first known written a draft regulation of the river Wien.

Configuration of the Schönbrunn gardens

Statue of Angerona by Johann Christian Wilhelm Beyer, Schonbrunn Garden, Vienna, 1773-1780 Angerona-Schonbrunn-3.jpg
Statue of Angerona by Johann Christian Wilhelm Beyer, Schönbrunn Garden, Vienna, 1773–1780

His most important work was a contract for Maria Theresa issued in May 1773. Within three years, he was expected to produce a number of statues of white marble vases, for an amount of 1,000 guilders per unit, excluding charges. As can be seen from the calculations, it was priced "per character", for statues of two or three figures was approximately several times charged.

After Beyer had received this order, one of his challenges was in the area around Sterzing to make quality marble which equaled that of Carrara. Already in the summer of 1773 Beyer was with a group of 15 sculptors at Sterzing. After his designs the figures were roughly hewn on site to reduce the weight for transportation. The blocks were placed on sleds in winter as far as the Brenner road from where Tyrolean carters it cost to Hall transported.

At Schönbrunn he was using the Winter Riding School (now a stable) as a studio. He focused on managing the organizational and design tasks. The price of the statues was the sculptor costing about half, and the remainder was retained for design and cost. Employees were not allowed to sign their work, so they are known simply as Beyers work in the majority of cases.

Four groups of figures for the planned four wells of the Great Parterre were started in 1776 (two in Beyer's studio, one at Hagenauer, one of Zauner), but had to be housed elsewhere because of the new MRP 1777: from Beyer's studio in the ruins and in the Obelisk Fountain, the other two wells in the Court of Honour.

Beyer's last great design for Schönbrunn were the figures for the 1780 Neptune Fountain, completed shortly before Maria Theresa's death.

See also

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