The painter brothers

Franz Xaver Winterhalter was born in Upper Menzenschwand on 20th. April, 1805, the seventh child of Eva and Fidelis Winterhalter. Eva came from an old-established Menzenschwand farming family, and was also related to the painter Hans Thoma (1839 – 1924). Franz’s brother, Hermann Winterhalter, was born on
23rd. September 1808 and was to become his life-long collaborator as well as a highly successful portraitist in his own right.

Franz Xaver was a gifted pupil and collaborated on the illuminated Bible which is known as the Herder Stone Bible. In the meantime, his younger brother, Hermann, had also begun an apprenticeship with Herder. He was only 13 at the time and must have felt extremely homesick, for one night he ran away and walked all the way back to Menzenschwand where he was not very well received by his stern father who took him without further ado straight back to Freiburg. On completion of his contract, Franz Xaver left the publisher’s and began studying in Munich with Robert von Langer at the Akademie as well as training in Josef Stieler’s workshop as a lithographer.

When Peter von Cornelius, a representative of the Nazarene school, became the director of the Akademie, Winterhalter set off on an extensive study trip through Germany. The following years saw the production of many drawings and portraits of patrons, friends and members of his family.

In 1828, Winterhalter moved again, this time to Karlsruhe. Baron David von Eichtal (the owner of the gun and machine factory in what had been the monastery in St Blasien and also mayor of the town) established the contact with the grand ducal court. Winterhalter was received there most amicably and gave Margravine Sophie, who later became the Grand Duchess of Baden, drawing lessons.
She became both a friend and a patron to him in the highest social circles of his homeland. This friendship was a contributory factor in his being allowed to undertake a study trip to Italy, which he embarked upon in 1832.

In Rome he sought above all contact with French artists, which led to his being given the nickname “the Frenchman” by his compatriots. Influenced by the magical landscapes around Rome and Naples, he produced mainly genre paintings, which were extremely successful back in his homeland. After his return to Baden in 1834, he was appointed as the official court artist. In the same year, he moved to Paris.

It was with a genre painting, Decamerone, that the artist made his breakthrough with both critics and the general public in the Paris “Salon” in 1837. From this time on, he quickly rose to be the favourite portraitist of the personalities at the court of Louis Philippe. The citizen king commissioned Winterhalter to paint over 30 portraits for his historical museum in Versailles.

In 1840, such was the spate of commissions that Franz Xaver had his brother join him to help him with the painting of costumes and requisites and as a copyist who was always at hand.

In 1841, he was called to the court of Queen Victoria for the first time. This call was renewed a further 15 times and Winterhalter was an almost regular summer visitor for some months in the Queen’s family circle. He was so highly regarded that the powerful ruler lovingly called him  “Winterchen”. He also gave both the Queen herself and the Prince Regent, Albert, painting lessons, and she accumula-ted over 100 of his pictures for her private collection.During the year of revolutions, 1848/49, he stayed mainly in Brussels and in England and when the turbulent times were over, the artist found himself still in favour at the court of Louis Napoleon.

Right up until the end of the Second Empire, he not only painted the ravishingly beautiful Empress Eugénie and her royal household, but also had to accommodate the great demand from members of the Polish, Russian, Spanish and German nobility. His most famous patrons in this period were the Emperor Franz-Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth, whose portraits were created in 1864/65.

All this was combined with a large number of journeys, which took him, among other places, to Madrid and Warsaw. In 1857, a contemporary described the artist’s sphere of activity thus: “Winterhalter, Europe’s court artist from Manzanares to the Niemen, to a certain extent as far as the Newa, as far as the crinoline stretches.”

His ceaseless toil – according to his own records, he created over 500 portraits – was not without effect on his health, and soon lengthy recreational stays in Baden-Baden and in the Black Forest became necessary.

In 1871, he finally returned to Karlsruhe in his native land of Baden, had a handsome house built in Baden-Baden, which he sold soon after, for too many visitors tired him. His customers were now rather members of the bourgeoisie and he continued painting without interruption. He died when on a journey to complete several commissions on 8th. July, 1891 in Frankfurt, of an attack of typhoid fever.

Franz Xaver Winterhalter placed his entire artistic estate in the hands of his brother Hermann Winterhalter, with whom he had lived together for many years in a close bond of brotherly and artistic sympathy. The latter kept a protective eye on the work for a further 18 years. In this time, Hermann went on painting, but devoted his work to themes which corresponded more to his own personal taste. He died at the age of 83 on 24th. February, 1891 in Karlsruhe.

On the subject of Winterhalter, a connoisseur such as Joseph August Beringer, wrote the following:
“The master from Menzenschwand was, at the end of the 1850’s and in the 1860’s, an artist who combined the magic of his tactful, unconstrained behaviour, his refined social and intellectual skills and a phenomenal memory for physiognomies with an ability to work very rapidly. He was the born depictor of feminine beauty and the artist who documented the upper echelons of society of his time. Despite
working in a cosmopolitan environment and living in Paris for 30 years, he remained a true son of his native land.”

Friedrich Pecht (1814 –1903), painter and writer, wrote in his obituary, “This painter from the Black Forest was, of all modern German painters, the only one to achieve European renown.” Pecht also wrote, “And how very much had the man who was so often criticized for being a Frenchman remained German, through and through.”