Wielkie przedsiębiorstwo czy mała rodzinna firma? Kilka hipotez na temat warsztatu Michaela Willmanna

English Title: Large enterprise or a small family business? Several hypothesis concering the workshop of Michael Willmann

In: Kozieł, Andrzej ; Lejman, Beata (Hrsgg.): Willmann i inni. Malarstwo, rysunek i grafiki na Śląsku i w krajach ościennych w XVII i XVIII wieku. Breslau 2000, pp. 92-100

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Translation of abstract (English)

There is no doubt that the activity of Michael Willmann as a painter was to a significant degree based on the assistance of his workshop collaborators. This is suggested by the huge output of paintings bearing the mark of his style (the number of extant paintings goes into dozens) and the fact that patrons insisted on the master’s own work. The workshop character of the activity of the "Silesian Apelles" has been known but for a long time ignored by scholars. Thus our knowledge of the Lubiaz (Leubus) workshop is limited to an often quoted list, containing a dozen or so names of Willmann’s supposed Silesian and Bohemian pupils and collaborators, and the belief that they formed in Lubiaz "eine blühende Werkstattgemeinschaft" (E. Kloss). It is impossible at this stage to gain a comprehensive knowledge of how Willmann’s workshop in Lubiaz functioned: no comprehensive analysis of the extant paintings from the perspective of painterly technique has been conducted and archival records are far from complete. It is possible, however, to present several hypotheses. Willmann’s workshop in Lubiaz probably did not resemble the big workshops of, say, Rubens or Rembrandt, where a large number of young adepts got educated and worked. Rather, it was a much smaller, production-oriented family business. The analysis of extant paintings and archival records suggests that the workshop’s activity relied on family members: Willmann’s stepson Johann Lischka, daughter Anna Elisabeth, son Michael Leopold, and grandson Georg Wilhelm Neunhertz. Additional help from the outside would be enlisted when for some reason the assistance of family members was unavailable or insufficient. The number of collaborators was probably much smaller than generally believed and probably they were already educated artists, capable of independent work under the master’s supervision. The most important among them were Johann Eybelwieser from Wroclaw (Breslau) and Johann Kretschmer from Glogow (Glogau). Willmann’s workshop continued to function for a dozen or so years after the master’s death on 26 August 1706. In 1708 it was taken over by Lischka and after his death in 1712 by Georg Neunhertz, until his departure for Prague before 1724. The workshop executed several major commissions, including both oil paintings (Kamieniec Zabkowicki / Frankenstein, Henrykow / Heinrichau, Legnica / Liegnitz, Bardo / Wartha, Wroclaw, Sroda Slaska / Neumarkt, Strzelin / Strehlen) and frescoes (Wilkszyn / Wilxen).