Johann Georg Wille

Johann Georg Wille ( born November 5, 1715 the Upper Mill on Dünsberg near Giessen, † April 5, 1808 in Paris ) was a famous and important engraver.

Life

Will learned in his birthplace, the gunsmith craft, became acquainted with the engraver Georg Friedrich Schmidt in Strasbourg, was the same in Paris and was led here by the painter Hyacinthe Rigaud to Try in copperplate engraving. In Paris he lived temporarily with Denis Diderot as a neighbor, in the rue de l' Observance close of the École de médecine.

The first sheet, which made him a name which is the portrait of Marshal Louis -Charles -Auguste Fouquet de Belle -Isle and soon trusted him the most famous French painters their works to stab at. But he also engravings after paintings by old masters (after Gerard Terborch, Gabriel Metsu, Jan van Mieris, Caspar Netscher, etc.), many of which are among the finest creations of the engravers art.

Will was court engraver of the French king Louis XV. , The Prussian King Frederick II and the King of Denmark, Frederick V in 1746 he visited Germany, but returned in 1747 back to Paris.

When in May 1769 square pupil Johann Gottfried Herder took a trip to France, which also took him to Paris, it was Will who introduced him there in the Parisian society.

Napoleon Bonaparte made ​​him a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and the Institut de France took him on as a member. Nevertheless, he lived for a glorious ascent in the Ancien Régime after the revolution in poor conditions. He died in April 1808 in Paris.

His son Pierre- Alexandre Wille was known as a painter.

Pupil of Johann Georg Wille (selection)

• Charles Clément Bervic (Charles Clément Balvay; 1756-1822 )
• Balthasar Anton Dunker
• Johann Heinrich Eberts
• Heinrich Guttenberg
• François Robert Ingouf (1747-1812)
• Johann Gotthard von Müller
• Jacob Matthias Schmutzer
• Christian Gottfried Schulze
• Johann Friedrich August Tischbein
• Egid Verhelst
• Franz Edmund Weirotter