10.4 German, Austrian and Bohemian Paintings
I conclude this short survey with some observations about the so-called ‘German’ painters in the Hoser Collection. Under this term, he subsumed German, Austrian and Bohemian artists from the 17th century to the present. Two groups of paintings stand out.
The first is a group 69 paintings by the Prague rococo-painter Norbert Grund (1717–1767), together with 33 prints by Johann Georg Balzer (1736–1799) after paintings by Grund.1 Grund often worked after Watteau (1684–1721) and French rococo pictures, but also after Dutch models,2 as, for example, is evident in a Southern Harbour [21], which is inspired by compositions from the Dutch Italianates. Grund also copied whole compositions, as can be seen in the print of Balzer after Grund which is in fact based on a painting by Andries Both (1611–1642) [22-23].
The second group consists of 24 paintings by the landscape painter Christian Hilfgott Brand (1694‒1756) [24] who re-interpreted the Dutch tradition in a picturesque, freely painted rococo manner, and ten paintings by his son Johann Christian Brand (1722‒1795), who served as director of the Academy in Vienna.3
21
Norbert Grund
Spanish harbour with a smoking blackamoor
Prague, Národní Galerie v Praze, inv./cat.nr. O 291
22
Johann Georg Balzer after Norbert Grund after Andries Both
Tooth-puller with spectators
Prague, Národní Galerie v Praze, inv./cat.nr. R 35462
23
Andries Both
Tooth-puller with spectators, c. 1634
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv./cat.nr. 2199 (OK)
24
Christian Hilfgott Brand
Winter landscape with skaters
Prague, Národní Galerie v Praze, inv./cat.nr. O 287
25
after Philips Wouwerman
Three horses in a meadow landscape, after 1621
Prague, Národní Galerie v Praze, inv./cat.nr. O 168
Hoser’s contact with Franz Rechberger, director of the Albertina, explains many peculiarities of his collection: Rechberger himself had been a pupil of the above-mentioned landscape painter Christian Brand and, from 1797, he worked for Count Fries as a curator of his collection. Subsequently, after the end of the Fries collection, Rechberger received the post as director of the later Albertina in 1822.4 One example may illustrate Hoser’s relationship with the Albertina in detail. A small painting, The Three Horses, acquired by Hoser in 1826 from the private collection of King Maximilian of Bavaria (1756-1825) was prized at the time as an original by Philips Wouwerman (1619–1668) [25].5 Today, it is regarded as the work of a follower. Hoser owned two print reproductions of the painting with data about the owners at the time they were made. One of these was etched by Adam von Bartsch von Bartsch (1757–1821) in 1808, while the picture was in the Fries Collection in Vienna.6 The preparatory drawing by Bartsch is still in the Albertina [26]. In his catalogue from 1846 Hoser also refers to four painted copies by artists, active in Vienna, most of whom are more or less unknown today: one by the landscape painter Joseph Mössmer (1780–1845), who became professor at the Vienna Academy in 1812; one by Johann Franz Fischbach (1797–1871); another by Johann Nepomuk Rauch (1804–1847); and one by Friedrich Gauermann (1807–1862).7 They probably made these copies for study purposes, the younger among them perhaps in the Hoser collection itself, which was popular for it. There is a painting by Gauermann, which seems to reflect the so-called Wouwerman and which could date from around 1826, when the Three Horses was back in Vienna [27].
Hoser considered the distinction between the older Dutch and the younger German schools, including the Bohemian and Austrian painters, to be imaginary and arbitrary rather than scholarly, because, in his view, affiliation to a school was not determined by place of birth.8 In addition, for Hoser, the Netherlandish masters and their successors of the 18th century had set an aesthetic standard. Accordingly, he assessed two counterparts then attributed to Johann Conrad Seekatz (1719–1768) in his catalogue of 1846 in the following way [28]: they are ‘full of life and truth, correctly drawn, excellently arranged and coloured; as well as by the most diligent execution worthy to be placed at te side the best Netherlandish paintings, and to serve today’s genre painters as a model’ (in translation).9
Hoser does not seem to have seen an epochal shift in painting around 1800, as we usually do today. His taste was conservative and orientated towards the past. Josef Hoser's collection is a testament to a now historic canon of art, providing a bridge from the old masters to today's almost forgotten painters of the first half of the 19th century.
26
Adam von Bartsch after Philips Wouwerman
Three horses in a meadow landscape, c. 1808
Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, inv./cat.nr. 5023
27
Friedrich Gauermann
A grey and a chestnut in the pasture, c. 1825
Graz, Alte Galerie des Steiermärkischen Landesmuseum Joanneum
28
Anonymous
Group of vagabonds in front of a tent in a forest, 18th century
panel, oil paint 24.2 x 32.1 cm
Prague, Národní Galerie v Praze, inv./cat.nr. O 35
Notes
1 Hoser 1946, pp. 73–80.
2 Kříž 1984, pp. 281–305. Seifertová 1997. Vondráčková 2017.
3 Christian Hilfgott Brand, Hoser 1846, pp. 29–33; Johann Christian Brand, Hoser 1846, pp. 33–38.
4 Hoser 1846, pp. 136–137.
5 Hoser 1846, pp. 174–175, no. 1. Ševčík/Bartilla/Seifertová 2012, pp. 493–494, cat. no. 493.
6 Adam Bartsch, Les Chevaux in Repos, etching, Národní galerie v Praze, inv. no. R 2191. The other print is an aquatint from 1798 by Friedrich Christian Reinermann (1764–1835).
7 Hoser 1846, p. 190.
8 Hoser 1846, p. IX.
9 ‘… voll Leben und Wahrheit, correct gezeichnet, trefflich angeordnet und colorirt; so wie auch durch die fleissigste Ausfuhrung wurdig, den besten Niederlandern an der Seite gesetzt zu warden, und heutige Genremalern zum Vorbilde zu dienen’; Hoser 1846, pp. 156–157. Bartilla 2004, pp. 176–188. I thank Heidrun Ludwig for the justified remark, that Hoser’s attribution of the paintings to Johann Conrad Seekatz is not correct.