Ernst Stückelberg (baptized Johann Melchior Ernst Stickelberger; 21 February 1831 – 14 September 1903) was a Swiss painter native to Basel, born to a family that traced its connection to the city back to the 14th century.
He was one of the most popular artists of his generation, of the romantic tradition, producing many paintings of various themes (portraits, country and village scenes, and allusions to history), including a series on the Swiss national hero William Tell. He formally took the name Stückelberg in 1881; this was duly registered by the Basel authorities.
Background and early art school
Stückelberg came from an aristocratic Basel family, son of Emanuel Stickelberger and Susanna Berry. Following the early death of his father in 1833, he was brought up by his uncle, the architect Melchior Berri, to whom he was apprenticed. His leanings were towards art, having had formative school instruction under Hieronymus Hess and Ludwig Adam Kelterborn. So, after six months with his uncle, encouraged by Jacob Burckhardt, his mother's brother-in-law, he started studies with the portrait painter Johann Friedrich Dietler in Bern, continuing till 1850. He then was sent for academic training in Antwerp at the Academy of Fine Arts of Antwerp. His teachers in Antwerp included Gustaf Wappers, Louis Gallait and Josephus Laurentius Dyckmans.Franz Zelger, 'Der Historienmaler Ernst Stückelberg: 1831 bis 1903', Juris-Verlag, 1971, p. 21 This period of study was intensive but Stückelberg made contact with an international array of enthusiasts: Hendrik Valkenberg from Amsterdam, Ernst Rietschel from Dresden, Knud Bergslien from Voss, Norway, Hans Peter Feddersen from Holstein, as well as Ludwig Burger from Berlin, Moritz Delfs from Holstein, and Theodor von Deschwanden from Stans whose portraits he painted (1852). From this period, a total of 44 watercolour portraits exist, and numerous sketch books; in his second year, 1851, Stückelberg won first prize in the "Concours". One early painting of this time, Elijah brings the widow of Zarepath her resuscitated child (1852), is notable for its vivacity.Albert Gessler, Erinnerungen von Ernst Stückelberg von Basel (1831-1903), Schweiz verlag, Zurich, 1903 (German)
Experience in Paris and Munich
Having become acquainted with French art, he was further drawn to Paris, where he arrived during the period of Louis Napoléon's coup d'état of 1851. He met many other artists there, principally Theodor von Deschwanden, August Weckesser, Ludwig Knaus and Anselm Feuerbach. He copied works of Rembrandt, Velazquez, van Dyck, Corregio and Veronese in the Louvre. In 1853, after sketching in the Valais, the Simplon region and the Valtellina, the Tirol and Milan, he returned to Basel, but set off again for Munich to study miniature painting at the Academy of Fine Arts under Moritz von Schwind for three years, meeting Wilhelm von Kaulbach, Franz von Lenbach, Willhelm Busch and Heinrich Reimers in their studios, and painting their portraits. These latter had little influence on him, and Stückelberg retreated often to his rooms, somewhat disillusioned and also to escape the cholera in the city. From rather cramped quarters, he painted iconic Swiss historical themes, the best-known being: Melchtal returns to his blinded father (Landenberg's behest), The Sheriffs of Sarnen, The lady falconer, A girl in middle-age costume and Stauffacher's wife (calling her in-laws to fight for freedom), which last was purchased by the Confederation. An exhibition of his works back in Switzerland had caused a sensation, for which in 1856 Stückelberg was awarded the silver medal at the Berne Culture & Industry Exhibition of 1856.
Sojourn in Italy Returning for a short time to Basel, he painted King Henry II and Queen Cunigunde of Luxemburg (1855) on glass in the Minster, and Young upper class lady with a falcon (1856). He then set off for five months in Florence, and, encouraged insistently by Burckhardt, in Easter 1857 he left for Rome where he met old friends from Antwerp and Munich, Franz Dieber, Arnold Böcklin, Rudolf Henneberg and Anselm Feuerbach. The group would meet regularly in an Osteria or play Boccia. Other new influences included Kaspar von Zumbusch, Julius Moser, Polydore Beaufaux and Victor von Meyenberg. For some time he stayed with Fritz Simon at the house of Teresina Reinhardt at the Via della quattro Fontane 53, but during the heat of summer preferred to retreat to the country (as he had done from Munich) and establish himself in the Monti Sabini. He painted in Vicovaro, Cervara, and the village of Anticoli Corrado, where he integrated with the local people and had no shortage of models, including the local priest. Here he sketched, painted, and drew every facet of country life. From here stem seven albums of his output, as well as the famous works Evening in the Monti Sabini, A forest fountain and The Mary Procession (1858), the last of which hangs in the Kunstmuseum in Basel. This he placed on 24 January 1861 in a small room of the Basel Concert Hall for public viewing.Bernd Wolfgang Lindemann & Nikolaus Meier, Ernst Stückelberg 1831-1903, Schwabe, Basel 2003 (German) Italy was his homecoming as an artist: he subsequently visited the country over ten times. Nonetheless, he never left Basel as his base.
Establishing himself as an artist
Finally, Stückelberg returned in 1860 to Switzerland, establishing a studio in the Oberen Hirschengraben in Zurich. Monuments then being the rage, he was persuaded by Jacob Burckhardt to put in a design for the Battle of St. Jakob an der Birs (1444); this was rejected and a more conservative design chosen. In Zurich, Stückelberg befriended Rudolf Koller, Gottfried Keller (who greatly admired and extolled the virtues of the grand vistas of nature in Stückelberg's paintings),Gottfried Keller, Berner Bund, 12 January 1861 (German) Friedrich Theodor Vischer and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. With his painter friend Rudolf Koller, Stückelberg travelled to his homes in Meiringen and Hasliberg, and also to Paris and Cologne, and with Professor Bernoulli, his aunt's brother, to Haarlem, Zandvoort, the Hague, Leyden, Antwerp, Brussels, and Treves. Another trip to Italy needed to be aborted because of fever, and he diverted to the Tessin, painting the atmospheric Evening in Tessin (1863) and thence to St Moritz to recover. Otherwise, between 1860 and 1865, he painted portraits: Pastor Schläpfer and his Wife, Miss Anne Bischoff, The Sarasin children, Colonel Merian, The Baroness of Blonay, Mrs Schläpfer with a child. A number of other important works also date from this time: A Young Italian, Woman from Haslital with a jug in her hand (1860), Baptismal procession in Upper Wallis, Procession of Madonna of the Mountain (1861), The children's service, Girl with a cat on the arm, Faust & Gretchen (1862), The Pilgrims of Pereto (1863), and Portrait of Colonel (1864) - who as president of the Swiss Society of Arts, Stückelberg tried and failed to persuade to set up a Swiss Art School. Finally, Mariuccia at the Fountain (1863-5), which whilst executing Stückelberg said he was most in his element and most happy.Samuel Rocheblave, Ernst Stuckelberg, Sa Vie - Son Oeuvre, Fischbacher, Paris 1931 (French) He painted Felicetta, and Romeo and Julia in the Village in the early 1860s. This was exhibited at the Paris World Exhibition of 1867, and subsequently overpainted as Youthful Love and is now in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne.
Marriage
In 1866, Stückelberg married Marie-Elisabeth Brüstlein, one of his art students, of an Alsatian family who had moved to Basel in 1852, born in Brooklyn, USA. He painted Portrait of the Bride and Self-portrait with a beret (1866-7). Their honeymoon, after some days in Wavre in Belgium, took them to Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento and Capri, from where many paintings stem typifying Stückelberg's grasp of light, colour and shade such as: Midday on Capri, Spring morning in Pompeii, and The Marionettes (1866-9), which accorded Stückelberg the Munich Gold Medal in 1869. Their first son, Ernst Alfred, was born in August 1867, and the family completed a trip via Bordeaux to Toledo and Madrid. Life surrounded by his family, with intervals in Amden, the Walensee, Kienberg in the Jura, and Montreux, occupied his time, evidenced by many paintings of children and home. These encapsulate a happy atmosphere, and scenes are painted with reality, stillness, even if including death, but with no sentimentality. The portraits of Margaret Bernoulli (née Berry) (1867) and of Mrs Charlotte Kestner (1868), as well as Renunciation (1868) date from this period. Further children, Marie (May 1869) and Alfred (September 1870) were born, and Stückelberg travelled to Munich, Dresden, Kassel, and Paris as an established artist.
Home at the Erimanshof
In 1871, Stückelberg declined a professorship under Graf Kalckreuth in Weimar, preferring to remain in Basel. He purchased the Erimanshof, on Petersgraben, an ancient building adjacent to the Kreutztor, the other side of which stood the Seidenhof, on Blumenrain, dating from 1573. The painting that he had worked on in his studio in the house, The Painter's Family (1872), was shown at the World Exhibition of Vienna in 1873 and gained him the Knight's Cross of the Imperial Order of Franz-Joseph. He then proceeded over a period of 18 months between 1873 and 1874 to cover the walls of the Erimanshof with frescoes; these depicted the virtues Charity, Wisdom, Prudence, Diligence and Truth as feminine figures in alcoves, surrounded by decorative musical instruments, fruits, and animals. Wisdom was portrayed as a blonde teaching a boy to read his first word, amo, and Love as Marie-Elisabeth in an Italian hairstyle, with a child in her arms and two playing in the folds of her dress. This fusion of truth and poetry remained a constant theme with Stückelberg. The Kreutztor and the Erimanshof were destroyed in a traffic scheme of 1937, and the frescoes largely lost.
Family life
Three more children, Gertrude (December 1871), Vico (1872), and Adrien (April 1874), were born to the family, and Stückelberg produced more works, The love figure merchant (1872), At the fountain of Rocca Ceri (1874) and The Butterfly Catcher (1875). However, his wife fell ill and the latter part of 1875 and 1876 was spent recuperating on the Côte d'Azur. There, numerous sea scenes and more pictures were painted: Wandering by the seashore (1876), St Raphael & Fejus, Children from Foreign Parts, Child with a large leaf (Ernst Alfred), Girl with a red cap (1877) and Girl with a Lizard (1876–84). This last appears as the work of the non-existent René Dalmann in Bernard Schlink's novel series Liebesfluchten. Stückelberg had begun what is perhaps his seminal work in 1875, The 1356 Basel Earthquake in three drafts, which he wished not just to be a historical portrayal of a catastrophic event but to discover the "soul" of the event, with a dead child held up to heaven in agony. It took Stückelberg ten years till 1885 to complete this work.
The influence of Jacob Burckhardt
Jacob Burckhardt, professor of Art History in Basel, who had taken it upon himself to guide the career of Stückelberg, persuaded him to produce a monumental "untransportable" tableau, titled The Awakening of Art in the Renaissance, which adorned the staircase of the Basel Kunsthalle for an exhibition in 1877. This needs two earlier paintings, The Black death in Basel in 1349 and The Renaissance in Basel (1874) to explain its symbolism. Burckhardt saw Stückelberg as the painter, who, despite the political restoration of 1815 having failed to halt the dynamics of revolutionary change, looks for a higher world of beauty and harmony.Lionel Gossman, Basel in the age of Burckhardt: a Study in Unseasonable Ideas. Uni Chicago Press 2000, p.404-5
Frescoes on the Tellskapelle