Franz Seraph Hanfstaengl (1 March 1804, in near Bad Tölz – 18 April 1877, in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

) was a

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

n painter, lithographer, and photographer.

Life

Hanfstaengl originated from a commoner family and in 1816 came on the recommendation of the town-school-teachers into the drawing-class of the leave-day school at Munich led by Hermann Joseph Mitterer. He was instructed in lithography, he had contact with

Alois Senefelder Johann Alois Senefelder (6 November 177126 February 1834) was a German actor and playwright who invented the printing technique of lithography in the 1790s.Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998. p 146 Acto ...

and studied from 1819 to 1825 at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. In 1826, he went to Dresden and began his great work, completed in 1852, of copying in lithograph the canvases of the Dresden Gallery. Between 1835 and 1852 Hanfstaengl brought out about 200 lithographic reproductions of masterworks from the

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

picture-gallery, and published them in a portfolio. When he returned to Munich, he left his establishment at Dresden to his brothers Max and Hans. In 1833 he founded in Munich a lithographic establishment of his own, which he operated until 1868, and to which he later attached a fine art printing shop and (in 1853) a photographic workshop. Hanfstaengl won for himself much popularity as the portrait lithographer of Munich society, being nicknamed 'Count Litho'. Later, he became court photographer and produced portraits of distinguished persons, amongst others of the young

King Ludwig II Ludwig II (Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm; 25 August 1845 – 13 June 1886) was King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886. He is sometimes called the Swan King or ('the Fairy Tale King'). He also held the titles of Count Palatine of t ...

, of Franz Liszt, Otto von Bismarck and

Empress Elisabeth of Austria Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie in Bavaria (24 December 1837 – 10 September 1898) was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898. Elisabeth was ...

. In 1858 Hanfstaengl tutored renowned French photographer Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon. He influenced his brother-in-law, the Austrian physician, inventor and politician Norbert Pfretzschner senior in the evolving of the photographic dry-plate in 1866. He was married to Franziska Wegmeier (1809–1860), by whom he became the father of

Edgar Hanfstaengl Edgar Hanfstaengl (15 July 1842, in Munich – 28 May 1910, in Munich) was a chief clerk, commercial purchaser and art publisher. He was significantly the son of a famous Bavarian court photographer who was connected with the circle of Ludwig II a ...

. Another family member, Erwin von Hanfstaengl, in 1873 married the opera-singer Marie Schröder.Meyer's Konversations-Lexikon, 1888-90.

Gallery

Franz Liszt 2.jpg, Franz Liszt Franz Hanfstaengl - Clara Schumann (1857).jpg,

Clara Schumann Clara Josephine Schumann (; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over the course of a ...

Richard Wagner 2.jpg, Richard Wagner Sofia Carlota da Baviera.1.jpg,

Duchess Sophie Charlotte in Bavaria Duchess Sophie Charlotte Augustine in Bavaria (23 February 1847 – 4 May 1897) was a granddaughter-in-law of King Louis Philippe of France, the favourite sister of Empress Elisabeth of Austria and fiancée of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. ...

Johann Friedrich Overbeck 2.jpg,

Johann Friedrich Overbeck Johann Friedrich Overbeck (3 July 1789 – 12 November 1869) was a German painter. As a member of the Nazarene movement, he also made four etchings. Early life and education Born in Lübeck, his ancestors for three generations had been Protes ...

Notes

References

* Heß, Helmut, ''The publishing-house of Franz Hanfstaengl and early photographic art-reproduction.'' Das Kunstwerk und sein Abbild. (Akademischer Verlag, Munich 1999) * Gebhardt, Heinz, ''Franz Hanfstaengl/Von der Lithographie zur Photographie'' (From Lithography to Photography). (C. H. Beck, München 1984).

External links

* * Literature of and about Franz Seraph Hanfstaengl in the Catalogue of the German National Librar

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanfstaengl, Franz Seraph German lithographers Portrait photographers 1804 births 1877 deaths Academy of Fine Arts, Munich alumni 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists German male painters 19th-century German photographers Photographers from Bavaria