Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Bendemann, Edward
BENDEMANN, Edward, a celebrated painter of the Düsseldorf school, was born in Berlin, Dec. 3, 1811. After receiving a good literary education, he became a student at the Düsseldorf Academy, under the well-known Schadow, who soon discovered that he had chosen his true vocation. When only one-and-twenty he exhibited at Berlin a large painting, "The Grief of the Jews," suggested by Psalm cxxxvii. It was popularized by means of lithographs, and is in the Cologne Museum. In 1833 he executed a picture, afterwards engraved by Felsing—"Two Young Girls at the Fountain,"—which was purchased by the Society of Arts of Westphalia. In 1837 he exhibited at Paris a large canvas, "Jeremiah amid the ruins of Jerusalem," which gained the gold medal. This picture, of which Weiss published a good lithograph, is in the private gallery of the Emperor of Germany. "Harvest" followed, which was engraved by Eichens. The success of this piece led Bendemanu to produce others of the same class, such as "The Shepherd and Shepherdess," from one of Uhland's idyls, and "The Daughter of the Servian Prince," from a Servian ballad. After having been appointed Professor in the Academy of Arts of Dresden, he received the commission to decorate the royal palace, and undertook the grand frescoes, upon which, above all, his reputation is founded. The progress of this undertaking was interrupted by a disease of the eyes, which the artist contracted in Italy. Bendemann executed a frescoe of "Poetry and the Arts;" a design for a monument to Sebastian Bach, which was afterwards erected at Sandstein; a portrait of the Emperor Lothaire II. for the city of Frankfort, many other portraits of celebrated Germans, and among them that of Schadow's daughter, whom he married in 1838. In 1860 he succeeded his father-in-law as Director of the Academy at Düsseldorf.