Selbstbildnis

Title

Selbstbildnis

Description

A portrait of Rembrandt van Rijn(1606 1669). He was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age when Dutch Golden Age painting, although in many ways antithetical to the Baroque style that dominated Europe, was extremely prolific and innovative, and gave rise to important new genres in painting. Having achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, Rembrandt's later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high and for twenty years he taught many important Dutch painters.

ca. 1860

Artist

Hanfstaengel (1804-1877)

Franz Seraph Hanfstaengl (1804- 1877) Munich was a German painter, lithographer and photographer. Franz Hanfstaengl came from a long-established farming family from Baiernrain near Tölz and in 1816, on the recommendation of the village school teacher, joined the drawing class at the holiday school run by Hermann Josef Mitterer in Munich. He was trained in lithography, had contact with Alois Senefelder and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1819-25. He set up his own lithographic studio, which he ran until 1868 and to which he added an art print shop in 1853. In 1835-52, Hanfstaengl produced around 200 lithographic reproductions of masterpieces from the Dresden Picture Gallery and published them in a portfolio. The establishment he founded in 1833 continued to operate as an art publishing house under his name after his death until 1980. This business was professionalized from 1868 by Franz Hanfstaengl's son Edgar, who worked commercially and overseas. The writer Thomas Mann ironized his mass reproduction of art in his 1902 novella Gladius Dei by describing him and his “reproduction industry” as the “Blüthenzweig art dealership”. Hanfstaengl's grave is located in the Old Southern Cemetery in Munich.