377 



MULLER. 



MULLER, CARL OTTFRIED. 



378 



of painting, ' Saggio delle Cinque Scuole di Pittura Italian;).' Mulinari 

 died near tfie close of the 18th century, aged about fifty-five. Among 

 the above-mentioned works are four after L. da Vinci, five after Michel 

 Angelo, twenty-two, after Raffaelle, eight after Julio Romano, six after 

 Polidoro da Caravaggio, twenty-six after Parmegiano, five after Daniele 

 da Volterra, eight after Barocci, seven after Cesare Procaccini, three 

 after Guido, three after Sacchi, thirteen after Guercino, and many 

 others. Nagler has given a list of about two hundred of them in his 

 ' Kunstler Lexicon." 



MOLLER, the name of two very celebrated German engravers, 

 father and POD. 



Jou.\yy GOTTHARD VON MULLER, the elder, was born at Bernhausen, 

 near Stuttgart, in 1747. Hia father, who held an official situation 

 under the government of his native country, wished to educate Miiller 

 for the church, but the youth showed so much ability for art in the 

 newly-established (1761) Academy for the Arts at Stuttgart, that the 

 duke himself urged him to follow art as his profession. Accordingly, 

 in 1764, Miiller, under the immediate patronage of the duke, entered 

 the school of the court painter, Guibal, who recommended him to 

 follow engraving, which he pursued for six years (1770-76) at Paris 

 under Wille, with such success that, in 1776, he was elected a member 

 of the French Academy, He was recalled in the same year by the 

 Duke Carl to Stuttgart. His last work in Paris was a good portrait 

 of his master, J. G. Wille. The first engraving which he completed 

 at Stuttgart was ' Alexander, Conqueror of Himself,' after Flink, which 

 he took in 1781 to Paris to be printed, not venturing to work off so 

 valuable a plate at the then inexperienced copper-plate press esta- 

 blished by himself in Stuttgart. In 1785 he was invited to Paris to 

 engrave the portrait of Louis XVI. painted in 1774 by Duplessis; 

 but the picture of Louis, which Bervic engraved, was painted ten 

 years later, and Bervic 's is accordingly a more characteristic portrait 

 of what that monarch eventually was. In 1802 Miiller was made 

 professor of engraving in the academy at Stuttgart, where he instructed 

 several of the best engravers of Germany, during the earlier part of 

 the 19th century, among whom his own Ron, Christian Frederick, is 

 the foremost. He was elected successively a member of the principal 

 German academies; was presented in 1808, by the king Frederick of 

 Wiirtemberg, with the Order of Civil Merit ; and in 1818 was made a 

 Knight of the Wiirtemberg Crown by Frederick's successor, King 

 William. He died at Stuttgart in 1830, and in the same year a 

 biography of him was published in the ' Schwiibische Merkur,' 

 No. 71. Miiller engraved only thirty-three plates, a small number, 

 but gome of them are large and elaborate works ; they are however 

 chiefly portrait!. His principal works, besides those already mentioned, 

 are' The Battle of Bunker's Hill,' after Trumbull, engraved in 1799 ; 

 the ' Madonna della Seggiola,' for the Musee Kraucais, engraved in 1804, 

 by many considered superior to the print of the same subject by 

 Raphael Morghen ; a ' St. Catherine, with two Angels,' after L. da 

 Vinci ; and the portrait of Schiller, after A. Graf. 



CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH vox MULLER surpassed his father, but, 

 owing to the extreme shortness of hia career, his prints are even less 

 numerous than those of the elder Miiller. He was born at Stuttgart 

 in 1783, and he died at Pirna, near Dresden, in 1816, aged only thirty- 

 three. He was carefully educated by his father in all those branches 

 of the arts which, by his own experience, he knew to be requisite to 

 constitute an excellent engraver ; and in 1802 he sent him to com- 

 plete his studies at Pari-, where at that time the majority of the finest 

 works of art in Europe were collected together in the Louvre. Here, 

 in 1808, Muller engraved the 'St. John about to write his Revelation,' 

 after Domenichino, in which the eagle brings him his pen ; and ' Adam 

 and Eve under the Tree of Life,' after Raffaelle. He was commis- 

 sioned shortly afterwards by Rittner, a printseller of Dresden, to 

 engrave his last and greatest work, the ' Madonna di San Sisto ' of 

 Ratfaelle, in the Dresden Gallery. He was wholly occupied for the 

 remainder of his short life on this plate, which he just lived to com- 

 plete, but he never saw a finished print from it. He removed to Dres- 

 den in 1814, and was appointed professor of engraving in the academy 

 there. His existence seems almost to have been wrapped up in the 

 execution of this plate : he was occupied with it day aud night, and, 

 always of a sickly constitution, the infallible result of such constant 

 application and excitement soon made its appearance. He was how- 

 ever in vain advis>-d to desist for a while from his work. He com- 

 pleted the plate and sent it to Paris to be printed ; but with his plate 

 the artificial excitement which supported him departed also : he had 

 juit strength enough left to admit of his being carried to the Soniieu- 

 stein, near Pirna, where he died in 1816, only a fow days before the 

 proof of his plate arrived from Paris. It was suspended over the 

 head of his bier as he lay dead, thus reminding us of the similar 

 untimely fate of the great master of the original, above whose head, 

 as he lay in state, was hung also bis last work, 'The Transfiguration.' 

 Muller left a wife and two young children. Christian Muller engraved 

 only eighteen plates, but the ' Madonna di San Sisto ' i.i in itself a 

 boat, and exhibits him at least the equal of Raphael Morghen, to 

 whose ' Transfiguration ' it serves as a good pendant : there are several 

 lithographic copies of it, Hia other works are nearly all portraits : 

 among them are Jerome Bonaparte, Schiller, Jakobi the poet, Pro- 

 fe*or Hebel, Dr. Hufelund, William, king of Wiirtemberg as Crown- 

 1'riuce, and a medallion of Napoleon. 



MULLER, CARL OTTFRIED, one of the most learned scholars of 

 modern times, was born in 1797, at Brieg, in Silesia, where his father 

 at the time held the office of preacher to a division of the Prussian 

 army. Muller received his early education in the Gymnasium of Brieg, 

 and in 1813 he entered the University of Breslau, where he devoted 

 himself to the study of philology. From 1815 to 1817 he studied at 

 Berlin, and as soon as he had taken his degree and had given evidence 

 of his mythological studies and researches in a little work entitled 

 ' ^Egineticoruin Liber' (Berlin, 1817), he was appointed teacher of the 

 ancient languages in the gymnasium (called the Magdaleuum) of 

 lireslau. While engaged in teaching, he employed all his leisure hours 

 in mythological inquiries, endeavouring to analyse tlie various mythical 

 cycles and trace them to their earliest and simplest elements. The 

 great work containing the results of these researches is a history of 

 Hellenic races and cities (' Geschichte Hellenischer Stiitume und Sta'dte"), 

 of which the first volume, on ' Orchomenos and the Miuyaus' (' Orcho- 

 menos und die Minyer '), appeared at Breslau in 1820, 8vo). 



It was in consequence of the ad vice of Ueerenaud a recommendation 

 of A. Boeckh, that in 1819 Muller was invited to a professorship in 

 the university of Gottingen, with the special object that he should 

 lecture on archaeology aud ancient art. His activity created a new 

 sera in the history of Gottiugen, and under his aud Dissen's auspices 

 the study of philology and and ancient literature received an impulse 

 which was soon felt in all Germany, and was extended over a great 

 part of Europe by the valuable works published by Muller in rapid 

 succession. In order to acquire a more intimate knowledge of ancient 

 works of art than could be obtained from mere descriptions, he spent 

 in 1819 some time at Dresden, and in 1822 he visited France and 

 England. But although his attention was more particularly directed 

 to ancient art, he never lost sight of the fact that the arts of the 

 ancients represented only one side of their intellectual activity, and 

 formed only one source among the many from which a complete 

 knowledge of antiquity is to bo derived. In order to show fully the 

 connection of religion, maunera, politics, and history, in the case of 

 one of the Greek races, Muller wrote his work on the Dorians (' Die 

 Dorier,' Breslau, 1S24, 2 vols. 8vo), wliieh forms the second and third 

 volumes of his ' Geschichte Hellenischer Starnme und Stadte,' aud was 

 translated into English by H. Tutfnell and G. C. Lewis, Oxford, 1830, 

 2 vols. 8vo, with additions and corrections furnished by the author. 

 A new edition of the 3 vols. of the whole work was published after 

 -Mullcr's death by F. W. Schueidewin, Breslau, 184*, and a new edition 

 of the English translation of the ' Dorians ' appeared in 1840. Muller 

 intended to continue this series of works by a history of Attica, but 

 certain scruples induced him to defer the execution of this task, aud 

 it was unfortunately never executed. The year after the publication 

 of the 'Dorians' Miiller published his Introduction to a scientific 

 system of Mythology (' Prolegomena zu einer wisseushafttichen Mytho- 

 logie,' Gbttingen, 1825, 8vo), of which an English translation by J. 

 Leitch was published in London, 1844, 8vo, and another work on the 

 early history of Macedonia (' Ueber die Wohusitze, die Abstammung 

 und die altere Geschichte des Makedouiachen Volkeg,' Berlin, 1825). 

 These productions were soon followed by a great work on the 

 Etruscans (' Die Etrusker,' Breslau,. 1828, 2 vols. 8vo), and a manual 

 of the history of ancient art (' Handbuch der Aruua3ologie der Kuust," 

 Breslau, 183U ; a second edition appeared in 1835). This last work 

 was the first of the kind that had been produced in Germany. About 

 the same time he was requested by the Society for the Diffusion of 

 Useful Knowledge, to compose a history of Greek Literature, of which 

 the first volume appeared in 1840 ; of the second only a portion was 

 published : after Miiller' s death all that had appeared iu England was 

 published in Germany under the superintendence of his brother Julius 

 Muller. Besides these greater works Muller also wrote 'Minervaa 

 Poliadis Sacra et jEdem iu Arce Atheuorum illustravit,' &c., Go ttingen, 

 1820; 'De Phidias Vita et Operibus,' Gottiugen, 1827; aud a great 

 number of articles iu periodicals aud encyclopediac works. The first 

 correct edition of Festus that was published is that of Muller (Leipzig, 

 1839, 4to), and his edition of Varro's work ' De Lingua Latiua ' 

 (Leipzig, 1883, 8 vo), and of the Euuienides of ^Eschylus, are equally 

 valuable. 



In 1840 Muller, who had long desired to see the countries to the 

 investigation of whose history, literature, aud art his whole life had 

 been devoted, resolved to visit Italy aud Greece, partly to convince 

 himself of the correctness of the results at which he had arrived, and 

 partly to collect new materials. Hia activity in Greece was very 

 great; one hut day in July, 1841, while engaged in making some 

 excavatiou at Delphi, he waa seized with a fever, in consequence of 

 which he died soon after he had returned to Athena. He was buried 

 in the Ancient Academy at Athens, the most appropriate place for a 

 scholar like Muller that could have been devised. 



Muller was a man of the most extensive and varied acquirements, 

 and of a keen and penetrating judgment. He acquired a European 

 reputation at a comparatively early age. His numerous works how- 

 ever are not all of equal meiit, aud the two faults more particularly 

 to be noticed are his great haste in the composition of his works, and 

 a tendency to theorise and generaliae on insufficient grounds. But in 

 extent of knowledge and reading there scarcely ever was a scholar 

 who surpassed him. 



(Neuer Nekrolog der Dwtachen fiir 1841; V. Liioke, Erinnerungm 



