6171 - Mayer, Friedrich Carl

Mayer, Friedrich Carl A Monk Working as a Sculptor in the Monastery Workshop. Oil on canvas. 26.2 x 22.2 cm. Inscribed, signed, and dated in the lower left corner: "N[ürn]b[er]g / F C Mayer 1855". This intimate genre scene depicts a hooded monk sitting on a stool in a sun-drenched, vaulted monastery room, deeply concentrated as he works on an epitaph. The warm play of sunlight streaming through Romanesque stone arches illuminates the columns, the greenery, and a glass vase of flowers behind the monk. The model of the church on the left, with its west choir in front of the two towers topped with pointed spires, is somewhat reminiscent of St. Sebaldus Church in Nuremberg. Friedrich Carl Mayer studied architecture and architectural painting at the Munich Academy from 1844 to 1847. From 1849 to 1855, he worked as an assistant to Carl Alexander Heideloff in Nuremberg; from 1855 to 1865, he served as a professor at the School of Applied Arts there, and from 1865 to 1875 at the School of Applied Arts in Weimar. In 1875, he returned to Nuremberg as curator of the painting collection at the Germanic National Museum. As a painter, he found the majority of his subjects in Nuremberg. - Please request condition reports for the lots, as the condition is listed in the catalog only in exceptional cases. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.