Maximilian Emanuel Ainmiller (14 February 1807,

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

– 9 December 1870) was a German artist and glass painter. Under the tutorage of Friedrich von Gärtner, director of the royal Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory, Ainmiller studied glass painting, both as a mechanical process and as an art, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 1828 he was appointed director of the newly founded royal painted-glass manufactory at Munich. The method which he gradually perfected there was a development of the enamel process adopted in the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

, and consisted in actually painting the design upon the glass, which was subjected, as each colour was laid on, to carefully adjusted heating. The earliest specimens of Ainmiller's work are to be found in the cathedral of

Regensburg Regensburg (historically known in English as Ratisbon) is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the rivers Danube, Naab and Regen (river), Regen, Danube's northernmost point. It is the capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the ...

. With a few exceptions, all the windows in

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cathedral are from his hand. Specimens may also be seen in

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...

and

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Peterhouse has around 300 undergraduate and 175 graduate stud ...

, and the

Cologne Cathedral Cologne Cathedral (, , officially , English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia belonging to the Catholic Church. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the administration of the Archd ...

contains some of his finest productions. Ainmiller had considerable skill as an oil-painter, especially in interiors, his pictures of the

Chapel Royal A chapel royal is an establishment in the British and Canadian royal households serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the royal family. Historically, the chapel royal was a body of priests and singers that travelled with the monarc ...

Windsor Castle Windsor Castle is a List of British royal residences, royal residence at Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, about west of central London. It is strongly associated with the Kingdom of England, English and succee ...

and of

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being much admired, the latter of which is displayed in the gallery of the

Neue Pinakothek The Neue Pinakothek (, ''New Pinacotheca'') is an art museum in Munich, Germany. Its focus is European Art of the 18th and 19th centuries, and it is one of the most important museums of art of the nineteenth century in the world. Together with t ...

. He is buried in the Alter Südfriedhof in Munich. Maximilian was also mentor to many famous painters, including future son-in-law David Dalhoff Neal, and grandfather to dramatist Max Neal, and composer Heinrich Neal who was born a few months prior to his death. A street, Ainmillerstrasse, named in his memory, is located in the

district of

Schwabing Schwabing is a borough in the northern part of Munich, the Capital (political), capital of the Germany, German state of Bavaria. It is part of the city borough 4 (Schwabing-West) and the city borough 12 (Schwabing-Freimann). The population of Sc ...

See also