Bartholomaus Lammler Art for Sale at Auction

b. 1809 - d. 1865

Bartholomäus Lämmler was born on September 3, 1809 as the son of Johann Konrad Lämmler and Anna Katharina, née Anderauer, in Herisau (Canton Appenzell Ausserrhoden). In 1829 he married Anna Barbara Zuberbühler, from whom he was divorced in 1849. Lämmler was a self-taught furniture painter who worked as a farmhand and day laborer from 1844. His two daughters died shortly after their birth in 1831 and 1832. In 1832 he traveled to Alsace with his wife Anna Katharina to work in textile processing, but returned to Switzerland in 1833 to settle in Schwellbrunn . The couple's last two children were born there in 1835 and 1836.

Like many of his fellow rural painters, Lämmler was self-taught and employed in a farming profession. In December 1844 Lämmler left his family and moved to Brülisau (Canton Appenzell Innerrhoden ), where he worked as a farmhand and day laborer. During this time Lämmler painted the first of his three traditional Alpfahrt boards (1849), his last box he painted in 1853. In order to get further orders, Lämmler tried to open a new market by painting alpine boards. The last commissioned work was Johann Ulrich Bischofberger's Eimerbödeli in 1856.

As a result of the lack of orders and his precarious financial situation, Lämmler always succumbed to drunkenness. He left Brülisau in 1856/1857, traveled a lot and worked as a day laborer. In the Doppelhof in Unterach near Wolfhalden he died on March 13, 1865 of "vomiting, diarrhea as a result of a cold and alcohol addiction".
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Lämmler's work was forgotten after his death. It was not until 1940 that the signature M. Bart was discovered. Lemmler the artist under the frame of the Alpfahrt picture "The view of the Kammohr, der Hohe, Kasten, and Staubern 1854" in the Historical Museum in St. Gallen . This made it possible to identify the work of Lämmler, the remaining works of which are not signed. It comprises a chest, nine boxes, eight boedeli (bottoms of milking pails), two monumental depictions of cows and six complete strips of cattleas well as twice as many fragments of Sennenstrip, some furniture panels, three Alpfahrt signs, a station of the cross and a tavern sign. Lämmler's picture of the alpine pastures, painted on a cupboard in 1838, is one of the earliest peasant paintings in Eastern Switzerland, depicting the life of the dairy farmer.

In fact, the number of Lämmler works accessible today is not great. This is not only due to the fact that it was mostly a matter of painting everyday objects that did not survive time. Lämmler's style also differed greatly from that of the traditional farmhouse furniture paintings that were customary up to that point and should therefore have seldom been asked for by buyers. Lämmler's early works were shaped by the Biedermeier period. Liveliness, freshness and a wealth of details characterize his work, which is considered to be the first high point of Senntum painting. Outstanding features of Lämmler's paintings are the poor mastery of perspective, the spontaneous and cheerful painting style and the unusual coloring.

Lämmler was self-taught and is likely to have gained inspiration for his work in the Herisau furniture workshop of Johannes Bartholomäus Thäler (1806–1850). During his short stay in Alsace, he had contact with the highly developed textile printing company there, which had inspired him to create the “Sennenstrip”, colored woodcuts that he had made and colored by a local color printing company. His portrait of a cow from 1849 has found widespread use in today's advertising industry.

Some of his works can be found in the Historical and Ethnographic Museum in St. Gallen, in the Appenzeller Folklore Museum in Stein AR and in the Appenzell Museum .
Catalog raisonné