Emilia Kłoda

Der Liegnitzer Maler Tobias Willmann – der unbekannte Bruder Michael Willmanns

There are several monographs on Michael Willmann, but none of them mentions that he had a brother in Silesia who was also a painter. Tobias Willmann was born in Královec around the year 1624. He became a master painter and a burgher in the town of Legnica on 23 December 1658. His family were committed members of the Protestant parish of Liebfrauenkirche (Church of the Holy Virgin). The painter had all his children baptised there: two sons and five daughters. Around 1660 he became the head of the local painters’ guild. He regularly received commissions from the town council. The commissions ranged from simple painting assignments to major, important projects, but mostly he received trade work. The only paintings still in existence that belong to Tobias Willmann can be found in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Miłoradzice in lower Silesia. They are paintings of scenes from the Old and the New Testament. Authorship is attributed to Willmann on the basis of a signature on the main altar. On the question of why the two brothers never worked together, it can be assumed that there were deep differences between them. Michael Willmann was a convert to Catholicism, which would have been difficult for his brother, devoted to the Protestant Church, to accept, they adopted very different life styles, and they were both successful in their careers early on. Tobias Willmann’s circumstances, however, gradually worsened. The Master of Lehnice died on 4 September 1702 and left large debts behind. The fate of Tobias Willmann is a typical example of the life of a Silesian painter: he had close ties to his Church, his guild, and his town, he enjoyed high social status, and he had a large, prosperous workshop. Nevertheless, the one who determined and defined the future development of baroque painting in Silesia was Michael Willmann, while his brother in Lehnice was forgotten.

< back