Acquisition of Lortzing portraits at Lippische Landesbibliothek, Detmold.

Note: Because the rebuilding of this website is not completely finished yet, some links to pictures mentioned in this article are not working yet.

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The Lippische Landesbibliothek, home of the Albert Lortzing archive, has acquired some unique portraits of Albert Lortzing.

The most interesting, IMO, is a colorful gouache, probably by the Swiss painter and lithographer Caspar Scheuchzer.

It is the source for the engraving that has already been on this website for years.

These are the catalog data of the Lippische Landesbibliothek:

Two other portraits that were obtained are a photogravure after the famous portrait that Wilhelm Souchon (1825-1876) made for the Tunnel Society in Leipzig and a reproduction of a photo, that shows Lortzing sitting with a glass of wine.

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Souchon’s painting

has been copied several times. The portrait by Schlick from 1845 is quite similar to the Souchon painting, and Schlick’s work again was the model for the portrait by Bruno Wittenstein, of which I took a picture when I saw it in the Lippische Landesbibliothek in 2001. During the same visit I saw the painting by an unknown painter, that also seems to be copied from, or at least inspired by, the Souchon painting.

An interesting aspect of the “Ganzportrait auf einem Stuhl sitzend mit Weinglas” is that it is only a part of a daguerreotype of 1844, where Lortzing is pictured with his friend Philipp Reger. I tried to find at least some differences, but my conclusion is that Reger simply must have been photoshopped (avant-la lettre) away, leaving all the attention of the observer to Lortzing.