9.1 Johann Valentin Prehn: Confectioner, Artist, Collector
Johann Valentin Prehn (also named Prehm, Bren, Brem or Brehm) was born into a family of confectioners [5]. Baptized on 4 September 1749, he is the same age as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), who came into the world a week before, at the opposite side of Frankfurt’s city centre. Johann Valentin’s father, Zacharias Ludwig Prehn (1708–1754), had come from Hamburg in 1733 as a trained confectioner and merchant of spices and sweets (‘Spezereihändler’). Johann Valentin’s elder brother Johann Georg Prehn (1743–1793), who also was a pastry cook, took over the parental bake house and shop at ‘Bornheimer Pforte’, located at the junction with the ‘Judengasse’, the former Jewish Ghetto.1 Unfortunately, we do not know by whom Johann Valentin was trained; his father had already died when before he was five years old.
In 1776 he married Margaretha Rosina Müller (1745–1822), a relative of the rich merchant, councillor and art collector Johann Friedrich Müller (1729–1791. After his marriage Johann Valentin established his first own shop in a small and rather hidden cul-de-sac next to the church of Saint Catherine, not far away from his later home.2 It was probably here where his seven children were born, of whom only three reached adulthood: Johann Friedrich (1778–1848, confectioner), Ernst Friedrich Carl (1780–1834, merchant), and Johanna Rosina (1785–1865, married name Sänger). By 1784, the family had moved to a house at the southern side of the ‘Zeil’, the former cattle market that was developing into the leading and most elegant shopping street in Frankfurt of its time. On the northern side were magnificent palaces inhabited by patricians and some aristocrats.3 A street-view painted several years later (1848) by Carl Georg Enslen (1792–1866) shows the stately house with seven axes extending over three floors and a mansard roof with two levels [6]. The two smaller houses to the left respectively belonged to Prehn’s neighbour and friend, the painter and restorer Johann Ludwig Ernst Morgenstern (1738–1819), and to the lawyer and art collector Johann Georg Grambs (1756–1817), who was chairman of the board of the Städelsche Kunstinstitut and who left his exquisite painting collection to this institution upon his death in 1817.4
Contrary to popular belief, confectioners were not considered craftsmen, but were counted among the artists or merchants and grocers. However, the Frankfurt confectioners of the 18th century were neither united in their own guild nor incorporated in a larger guild (e. g., the bakers’ guild) and did not have to submit a masterpiece.5 Confectioners made cakes and sweets such as macaroons, but also elaborate centrepieces with figural decorations, for which Johann Valentin Prehn was well-known, even outside the city.6 He had such a remarkable artistic skill for modelling soft masses — not only dough, but also wax or clay — that the Frankfurt art scholar Philipp Friedrich Gwinner (1796–1868) still mentioned it decades later. He emphasized that Prehn was highly skilful in ‘combing tasteful forms with correct design’ (in translation).7 It is not without reason that a portrait by Johann Jacob de Lose (1755–1813) from 1807 (preserved only in a copy by Emil Gion from around 1870) shows the confectioner with a modelling stick in his hand and a wax sculpture of a standing boy next to him [5]. Evidence of Johann Valentin Prehn’s modelling skills can still be seen in a small cabinet with various wax reliefs, some of which are signed and dated 1785 and 1786.8 The confectioner also made the frames for the small-sized paintings in the Miniature Cabinet himself, using tragacanth, a natural gum commonly used as a thickening agent in confectionery work.9 It should be noted here that Johann Valentin’s sons Johann Friedrich and Ernst Friedrich Carl also knew how to model artful delicacies, as appears from a description of Frankfurt stores from 1832. Under the heading ‘Gebrüder Prehn’ (‘Prehn brothers’) we read (in translation): ‘large confectionery. The showroom of this confectionery is one of the most beautiful and tasteful in the city, both the entrance and the interior leave nothing to be desired. The confectionery itself provides everything that nature and art are capable of producing. It offers a wealth of forms of decorations for desserts which would honour to every princely table’.10
Although Johann Valentin Prehn initially had few resources, he was rather wealthy from at least the last decade of the 18th century onwards. In addition to the stately house on the ‘Zeil’, he was able to buy a huge garden on the Chaussee to Bockenheim. In this noble neighbourhood outside the gates of Frankfurt the rich and distinguished businessmen and senators had their garden houses and parks. The writer Bettina von Arnim (1785–1859) gives us an idea of Prehn’s enchanting garden, with a garden house and numerous sculptures and fountains, in a letter she wrote in 1806, when her family had rented the garden for the summer.11 The files on his son Johann Friedrich’s application for citizenship in 1815 note that Johann Valentin paid the maximum tax rate, and on his death in 1821 he bequeathed over 25,000 Gulden to his daughter Johanna Rosina; the brothers were given real estate.12 However, the Prehns, being a family of confectioners and spice grocers, could by no means compete with the truly wealthy Frankfurt merchants and bankers: as early as the second half of the 18th century, 183 families possessed more than 300,000 Gulden.13 On the other hand, around 1840, Prehn’s son Johann Friedrich was included in the 50 largest homeowners (out of a total of 3,600) ranking 20th with an insurance value of 90,000 gulden (while the highest amounted to 180,000 gulden).14 It is important to mention all this in order to refute the erroneous but often-heard claim that Prehn collected small-format paintings because he lacked money. At an auction in 1808 he chose to buy 108 lots for a total of 288 gulden, instead of a single painting by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9–1682) of about the same price, presumably of the highest quality.15 Clearly, size and quantity were important to Prehn. Incidentally, the Miniature Cabinet was only a part of his extensive collection, which will be discussed further below.
5
Emil Gion after Johann Jacob de Lose
Portrait of Johann Valentin Prehn (1749-1821), c.1870
Frankfurt am Main, Historisches Museum Frankfurt, inv./cat.nr. B 1963:6
6
Karl Georg Enslen, Panorama of the ‘Zeil’, Frankfurt/Main, 1848 (detail) (Copy by Karl Sager, 1911-12, watercolour drawing)
HMF, B1152
© Historisches Museum Frankfurt, Photo: Horst Ziegenfusz
Notes
1 According to the old denominations this house lay in the area marked with the letter ‘H’ and had the number 18 (Lit. H No. 18). On Prehn’s family and career resp. stages in life: Ellinghaus 2021, pp. 139–141.
2 His shop is listed in a directory of shops and businesses, similar to today’s yellow pages, as being located in the ‘Flar(r)maulsgäßchen’: Mercantil-Schema 1778, p. 312.
3 Prehn probably was the owner of the house (Lit D. no 202) already at this time, but certainly since 1804: Ellinghaus 2021, pp. 144–145. On the history of the ‘Zeil’: Hübschmann 1952 (with a brief historical outline on p. 12–14). Nordmeyer 1997. Fuchs 1998.
4 Prehn’s social and artistic neighbourhood on the ‘Zeil‘ is outlined in Ellinghaus 2021, pp. 147–148.
5 Concerning the guilds in Frankfurt: Moritz 1986, pp. 287–312. For a short description of work and status of confectioners at the time: Kurze Beschreibung 1793, esp. pp. 15–16, partly quoted in Ellinghaus 2021, p. 141.
6 For the coronation of Emperor Franz II, which took place in Frankfurt on 14 July 1792, Prehn produced an allegorical centrepiece that was exhibited in his shop and could be viewed on certain days; it was accompanied by the publication of a homage in rhyme, Wettengl/Schmidt-Linsenhoff 1988, p. 147. The July 1800 edition of the Journal des Luxus und der Moden praised Prehn’s confectionary in the highest terms, which reads translated: ‘[…] only in precious desserts, in artificial confectionery, in temples and all kinds of centrepieces [Frankfurt] seems to compete with any other place. The skilful confectioner Prahn [sic] is one of the first artists of his kind […].’ Wettengl/Schmidt-Linsenhoff 1988, p. 33.
7 Gwinner 1862, p. 563: ’Mit vielem Geschick bossirte er die verschiedensten Gegenstände in Wachs, Thon und andere Massen, wobei er geschmackvolle Formen mit richtiger Zeichnung zu verbinden wußte, […]’. On Prehn’s skills and pastry art in general: Damaschke 2021, pp. 297–306.
8 Wettengl/Schmidt-Linsenhoff 1988, pp. 35–36, fig. 38.
9 On the use of tragacanth and the frames made by Prehn: Damaschke 2021, pp. 299, 306–309.
10 Döring 1834, vol. 2, p. 64.
11 Härtl 2011, pp. 261–162, letter No. 459 dated 19 June 1806. Other members of the Brentano family mentioned the garden in their letters as well: Ellinghaus 2021, pp. 145–147.
12 Ellinghaus 2021, p. 143, including details of the archival records.
13 Voelcker 1932, pp. 110–111. A list of assets can be found in Dietz 1910–1925, vol. 4,2 (1925), pp. 737–752.
14 Roth 1996, p. 361.
15 The Hüsgen sales catalogue, 9 May 1808 (Lugt 7396), lot 75, 291 gulden. An annotated copy of the catalogue belonged to Prehn’s son Ernst Friedrich Carl and is preserved in the University Library J.C. Senckenberg in Frankfurt.