Muller, Johann Gotthard Von

Muller, Johann Gotthard von a celebrated German engraver of sacred subjects, was born at Bernhausen, near Stuttgard, in 1747. His father, who held an official situation under the government of his native country, wished to educate Muller for the Church, but the youth showed so much ability for art in the newly established (1761) Academy of Fine Arts at Stuttgard that the prince himself urged him to follow art as his profession. Accordingly, in 1764. Muller, under court patronage, 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 called home in the same year by duke Carl to found a school of art at Stuttgard, which, under his guidance, produced many excellent artists. In 1785 Muller was invited to return to Paris to engrave the portrait of Louis XVI, painted in 1774 by Duplessis. In 1802 Miiller was made professor of engraving in the academy at Stuttgard, where he instructed several of the best engravers of Germany during the earlier part of the 19th century, among whom his own son, Christian Friedrich, is the foremost. He was elected successively a member of the principal German academies, was presented in 1808 by the king Frederick of Wurtemberg with the Order of Civil Merit, and in 1818 was made a Knight of the Wurtemberg Crown by Frederick's successor, king William. He died at Stuttgard in 1830, and in the same year a biography of him was published in the Schwabische Meerkurs, No. 71. Miiller engraved only thirty-three plates-a small number-but some of them are large and elaborate works; they are, however, chiefly portraits. His principal sacred subjects are the Meadonna della Seggiola, for the Musee Frangais, engraved in 1804, by many considered superior to the print of the same subject by Raphael Morghen; a St. Catharine, with two Angels, after Leonardo da Vinci. See Nagler, Allgemeines Kiinstler-Lexikon, s.v.; Spooner, Biog. Hist. of the Fine Arts, s.v.