Ferdinand Wachsmuth
Neapolitan seaside by Alsatian painter Ferdinand Wachsmuth, dated 1854. A luminous, contrasting romantic work in which the artist depicts himself with Neapolitan fishermen.
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated 1854 lower left
Dedicated, located and dated on the back “A Mme la comtesse …de Clery … 30 septembre 1854… .”
Dimensions: 30 x 46 cm
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Ferdinand Wachsmuth, Alsatian Romantic painter.
In this romantic painting, Ferdinand Wachsmuth plays with contrasts of light and shadow, a mixture of darker tones and lighter colors characteristic of Romanticism.
The strong-colored figures and rocks in the foreground stand out as if in shadow against a luminous background, highlighting the blue of the sky, sea and cliffs.
The artist in white coat and boater mingles with the intimacy of the two fishermen.
Biography
A native of Mulhouse, he is the son of Strasbourg painter François-Joseph Wachsmuth, a popular creator of frescoes and signs. Ferdinand Wachsmuth was a pupil of Casimir Karpff at Versailles, then of Gros, traveled to Algeria, exhibited at the Salon from 1833 to 1859 and won a medal in 18332.
He taught at the École de Saint-Cyr and headed the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Versailles. His brother Jean-Pierre Wachsmuth, who lives in the United States, is also a painter, while his brother Jean-Frédéric-Albert Wachsmuth is a draughtsman in Mulhouse.
A Portrait of Ferdinand Wachsmuth in his studio painted by Henri-Joseph Hesse in 1828 is now in the Mulhouse Historical Museum.
We owe him Italian and Orientalist paintings
Bibliography
– André Girodie, “Deux peintres versaillais d’origine alsacienne, Karpff et Wachsmuth” (report to the conference of learned societies of Seine-et-Oise, held in Versailles in 1930), Archives alsaciennes d’histoire de l’art, X, 1931, pp. 183-188.
– Nouveau dictionnaire de biographie alsacienne, article by Bernhard Metz, vol. 39, p. 4045.
-Dictionnaire de biographie des hommes célèbres de l’Alsace, vol. 2, p. 941.
-Gustave Vapereau, Dictionnaire universel des contemporains, 2nd part, Hachette, 1858, p. 1748 (online [archive]).
Museums
– Blérancourt, Franco-American Museum
– Colmar, Musée Unterlinden
– Le Havre, Saint-François church
– Mulhouse, historical museum :
– Paris, Louvre Museum
– Périgueux, Périgord Museum of Art and Archaeology
– Strasbourg, Musée des Beaux-Arts :
-Versailles :
◦ musée Lambinet : The Dog’s Lesson, 1833.
◦ musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon :
Sources:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Wachsmuth
https://www.alsace-histoire.org/netdba/wachsmuth-francois-joseph/
