Leopold Kupelwieser

Leopold Kupelwieser
Self-portrait (c.1813)
Born	Leopold Kupelwieser (1796-10-17)17 October 1796 Markt Piesting,Austria
Died	17 November 1862(1862-11-17)(aged 66) Vienna,Austria
Nationality	Austrian
Occupation	Painter

Journey of the Three Kings (1825)

Leopold Kupelwieser and Franz Schubert in Kupelwieser’sWatercolourLandpartie der Schubertianer vonAtzenbruggnach Aumühl (Detail),1820,Wien Museum.

Leopold Kupelwieser(17 October 1796,Markt Piesting– 17 November 1862,Vienna) was an Austrian painter, often associated with theNazarene movement.

Biography

He was the son of Johann Baptist Georg Kilian Kupelwieser (1760–1813), co-owner of a factory that produced tableware.His talents were recognized at an early age by the sculptorFranz Anton von Zaunerand by the time he was twelve, he was already attending theAcademy of Fine Arts, Vienna.

During a stay in Rome in 1824, he came under the influence ofFriedrich Overbeckand the Nazarene movement.After the death ofAlexei Sergeyevich Berezin,a Russian nobleman who had been his patron there, he returned to Vienna and earned his living primarily as an illustrator and portrait painter, although he is also known to have painted shop signs.

His brother was the theatrical directorJoseph Kupelwieser,who wrote thelibrettofor Schubert's operaFierrabras.With his brother, Joseph, he was a member of the "Schubertianer" (friends ofFranz Schubert), a group that often got together for summers at the Schloss Atzenbrugg, west of Vienna. In 1826, Leopold married Maria Johanna Evangelista Augustina Stephania Theodora Lutz, an occasion which was marked by Schubert's composition, the "Kupelwieser Waltz" (never written down, but passed along by the family and later transcribed byRichard Strauss).

In 1837, he became Professor ofhistory paintingat the Academyand, in 1850, was awarded the Knight's Cross of theOrder of Franz Joseph.Virtually all of his later work involved religious altarpieces andfrescoes.At the age of sixty he fell ill, apparently due to the rigors of painting on wetlime,and never recovered his health.

DasKaleidoskopund dieDraisine,Leopold Kupelwieser’s Caricature of himself andFranz Schubertfor theUnsinnsgesellschaft(16 July 1818).

Legacy

In 1894, a street was named in his honor and acommemorative stampwas issued in 1996. He is a character inDas Dreimäderlhaus(House of the Three Girls, 1916), a pasticheoperetta,derived from the music of Schubert byHeinrich Berté,based on the novelSchwammerl(Mushroom, one of Schubert's nicknames) byRudolf Hans Bartsch.Kupelwieser is honoured in street names in his birthplace (Kupelwieserstraße in Markt Piesting), Kupelwiesergasse inHietzing,Vienna and in the Austrian towns ofWiener Neustadt,St. PöltenandAtzenbrugg.

Gallery

• 
  Caroline Bonaparte,1819
• 
  Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor,1830
• 
  The Lössl Family, 1841
• 
  Anna Schrimer, 1815/1816

Further reading

• Constantin von Wurzbach:Kupelwieser, Leopold.In:Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich,Vol. 13 (1865), pgs.392–396 (OnlineatAustrian Literature Online) (Fraktur)
• Rupert Feuchtmüller: "Kupelwieser Leopold".In:Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950(ÖBL). Vol. 4,Austrian Academy of Sciences,Vienna 1969, p. 359 f. (Direct links to "p. 359","p. 360")
• Rupert Feuchtmüller:Leopold Kupelwieser und die Kunst der österreichischen Spätromantik,Österreichischen Bundesvaerlag, 1970
• Rita Steblin:DieUnsinnsgesellschaft:Franz Schubert, Leopold Kupelwieser und ihr Freundeskreis,Vienna, Böhlau, 1998ISBN3-205-98820-5

External links

• The Waltz in G Flat Major (Kupelwieser Waltz)@ YouTube
• "Works by Leopold Kupelwieser".Zeno.org(in German).
• Leopold KupelwieserinAustria-Forum(in German)(at AEIOU)