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art akademie
in Kassel
art akademie Kassel
Diploma of 1780
honory membership
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The founding of the `Kasseler Akademie' 1777 is one of the high points
of the government of Landgraf (landgrave) Friedrich II (1760-1785) for,
thereby, his dominion, the Landgrafschaft Hessen-Kassel, gained access
to the European development of the arts.
On one hand, the academy contributed to the fame of the lord of the land
and helped with the representation tasks of the court, on the other hand,
the academy gave testimony of the high level of education and taste of
the local monarch. The academy had a predecessor, namely the so-called
„Kunstschule“, since 1775 also called „Maler- und Bildhauer-Akademie“,
and this was located in the House of the Arts (Ottoneum), today's Museum
of Natural History. Very soon after taking of the reins in 1760, Landgrave
Friedrich II had already engaged wellknown scientists, from Kassel and
from abroad, as professors. Among these was the court painter Johann
Heinrich Tischbein d.Ä, already living in Kassel. The program in art
instruction was enlarged by the appointment, in 1766, of the court architect
Simon Louis du Ry (1726-1799) and, in 1767, of the sculptor Johann August
Nahl (1710-1785) to professorships, and of Tischbein's nephew Johann Heinrich
(1742-1808) to drawing teacher.
In addition to the drawings and etchings which the teachers made available
to the students, the monarch's art collections served as visual instructional
aids. This included the plaster casts of famous antique statuary and a
selection from the art collection which were stored in the house of the
academy. In addition, during school hours, to which, as the statutes mention
explicitly, women of the second class were admitted, there was readily
available the Landgrave's collection of paintings.
The professors of the academy had, each in his own specialty – Malerei,
Zeichnung, Bildhauerei und Baukunst – direct influence on what help was
to be given to the younger students. For particularly gifted ones, the
statutes required that annual prizes be given with corresponding prize
medals. The students, but also artists from out of town, were permitted
to compete for these prizes by submission of some work of art. A prize
winner could even become a member of the academy after being so nominated
by the professors. Connected with this membership was a socalled 'Aufnahmestück'
(acceptance piece) – painting, sculpture, or drawing –, which the new
member made over to the Academy. In this way, the academy acquired over
the years a collection which later ended up in the possession of the state
museums of Kassel.
Immediately after the founding of the art academy, Maria
Elisabeth de Boor traveled the more than 300 km from Hamburg to Kassel.
She already knew one teacher, namely Johann Heinrich Tischbein, from his
time in Hamburg when he had left Kassel because of the French occupation
and had painted a portrait of her family on their estate.
During her almost two years of studies at the academy, she drew, painted,
and created various pictures and plaster sculptures, and some of these
were in her estate - but today they are all lost.
21 students were matriculated in the year 1780, and when she finished,
she became an honorary member of the academy as did Amalie Wilhelmine
Caroline Tischbein, the daughter of her professor. The pictures of Elisabeth's
sisters are supposed by her.
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