Joseph Weiß

Joseph White, Joseph White painters Ballingen (* 1487 or 1488 in Balingen; † after 1565 in Balingen ) was a painter of the Renaissance.

He comes from a family of painters Balinger. His father Marx White the Elder ( † after 1518) and his brother Marx White the Younger ( * before 1518 in Balingen, † February 25, 1580 in Lingen ) were also painters. His brother Samson was Hofgerichtsprokurator in Rottweil. Recent research by Anna Moraht Fromm and Hans Westhoff bring it to the master of Meßkirch in conjunction. The corresponding argument follows below.

Life

A screening list of the city Balingen of 1523 called Joseph, painter, 35 years old, bringing its year of birth can narrow down to 1487 or 1488.

The Sebastian Society, a society that the organization of festival worship for the plague saints Sebastian and devoted himself ( etc. votive candles, alms ) used the revenue obtained therefrom for the care of the poor, recorded in 1521 a Joseph, Mäler. Between 1522 and 1525 he is continuously referred to as caregivers of the Brotherhood.

From 1527 to 1532 he was honorary mayor, thus responsible for the management of urban income and assets and the storage of the city seal.

Stock books and muster rolls call it 1502-1565 regularly in Balingen. In a Turkish tax list of 1542 the name of Marx is directly behind Joseph painter painter, it can be presumed that they have lived together at this time and probably worked. The house is described as follows, according to land register of 1543 as a corner house in the parish churches, profane, loud Balinger stock book No. 45 of 1560: " zinset järlich esides his eckhaus between the kirchgaßen and Balthas mangmaisters, hindering house located cheer vornen uff the streets and hinden uff ain sized hofstat, eight light -interest ", ie near the present-day Upper Kirchgasse. In addition, he owned several gardens, meadows and a vineyard on the gall stockpile in Engelestäle. Due to the low Hofstattzinses of only eight pence, the house can not have been very large.

From his artistic activities in Balingen, with one exception, nothing is known. During the renovation the ball of the spire in 1743 they found a temporarily lost document from 1541, which still existed in 1914 in the Dean's Office Archives. It says: " Ouch has repays Joseph White painters to Balingen daruf the stars and the moon ." This is also the only document that names the name White explicitly.

On the question of identity with the Master of Meßkirch

Key is a posthumous portrait of Count Eitel Friedrich III. of Zollern. First, this is identified by stylistic similarities than works of the master of Meßkirch. This is particularly drawn to the closeness of the artistic design of the gold background with the altar wing of Meßkircher high altar, " after engraving with some floral (Lily ) partly figurative patterns ( putti heads and vases ) the gaps were filled with punch marks in a matching size. This type of pattern is found in the Swabian space anywhere else. "

Dendrochronological studies have shown that the used fir wood was harvested in 1557, at a minimum storage period of two years, the painting is likely to be so incurred from 1559. The model for the portrait of a panel painting from 1520 was selected whose dimensions were adopted in the ratio 1:3. The occasion for the making of such a representative portraits is in the investiture of Charles I of Zollern with the counties of Sigmaringen and Veringen on March 23, 1561 accepted as " image has become legitimacy " in a refurbished gallery of ancestors.

Moraht-Fromm/Westhoff now link this with a Hohenzollerische bailiff bill of 1561: "Item n the seventh day Augusti were the champion Joseph, mahler to Balingen, gnäd of mine. Mr. graf Carls mr father Itelfriderichen blessed gedechtnus uf a hülzin panel 4 pays to make shy high on fleißigest, according slip 24 fl 4 bz "Hereby they represent the identity between the champions of Meßkirch and the Balinger painter Joseph ( White ) ago.

How clearly this link is now?

• In the absence of signatures based linking the portraits Eitel Friedrich III. with the Meßkirchener altar wings on expert expertise.

• In the cited documents relate exclusively to control and muster rolls, in which a painter Joseph is mentioned. Our current naming convention at the time was not yet. A first name and a job title sufficient for unambiguous, the current allocation of a person. But in the long period between 1502 to 1565 there might have been with the professional painter and several of Joseph: for example, Father and son, uncle and nephew, even at the expected date of birth of 1488 even grandfather and grandson.

• Joseph painter remained all his life in Balingen. In 1534 he experienced, so we start from a person 46 years old the Reformation. As a good Catholic, as the deport him his pictures, if we assume an identity that is hard to believe that he could pursue his work in Balingen impunity. The Augsburg Interim in 1548 may have given him a break again, but no later than 1552, there was again Duke Christoph church discipline. His brother Marx Younger White left in 1543 Balingen first to Rottweil and after 1550 to Überlingen.

• The modesty of his residence is not necessarily indicative of a successful, national artistic activity.

• The fact that Samson White, not painting the brother finds a mention in the Zimmerischen Chronicle, the painting but not brothers, also speaks not necessarily to believe one of the brothers white painting with the rooms and thus the Master of Meßkirch in connection to bring, although it strikes the other hand, that the chronicler in the detailed description of the construction activities of his uncle Gottfried Werner's no mention of the artistic design of the many altars, in contrast for example to the epitaphs. Moraht-Fromm/Westhoff have, however, indicated that Froben Christoph at disproportionately high ecclesiastical foundations manifests itself in great detail adverse, which would have been driven many a noble family to ruin. He could so the rich equipment of Meßkirchener parish church have held altars with the associated benefices a waste zimmerischen assets with a dozen would be wrapped over the better the cloak of silence.

The working title of "Master of Meßkirch " has thus continue to exist, even though some evidence to Joseph White, the painter Ballingen have.