Donadini, Ermenegildo Antonio (1847 – 1936). Bells. (1930s)

Oil on plywood
70 x 50
Lower right – Donadini, Radebeul

Ermenegildo Antonio Donadini (born June 19, 1847 in Spalato , Dalmatia , † October 14, 1936 in Radebeul ) was an Austro-German history painter, restorer, photographer, royal Saxon councilor and art collector. Among other things, he taught Queen Carola to draw.

Donadini was born in 1847 in Spalato in the Austrian Empire , today’s Split in Croatia . His father Giovanni Battista Donadini came from Venice. He was a judicial officer in Spalato.

Ermenegildo Antonio Donadini is studying with a scholarship for “training as an artist” at the Academy of United Fine Arts in Vienna . He finished his studies in Vienna with Eduard Engerth and Christian Ruben with a diploma in history painting.

Then he moved his studies to Venice. There he met the painters Hans Makart and Heinrich Lossow , with whom he went to Munich. In 1872 he became a master student of Carl Theodor von Piloty , a well-known genre and history painter , at the Munich Academy .

In 1877 Donadini became a professor at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna. Since he was dissatisfied with his work in Vienna, he switched to the professorship for figurative painting and the management of the studio for theater decoration at the Academy of Applied Arts in Dresden, based on Antonsplatz . Under the protection of the Saxon regent couple, Donadini was a respected artist there for over 30 years.

Donadini created numerous monumental wall and ceiling paintings with mythological and historical themes for the Villa Bleyl, the Villa Eschebach and the Wettinersaal in the Dresden City Palace, most of which were destroyed in the Second World War. He restored numerous frescoes by Louis de Silvestre , Moritz von Schwind and Friedrich Preller the Elder in Dresden and Leipzig . In addition, Donadini wrote several works on Saxon art history.

Hofrat Donadini was a pioneer of photography, and many of his glass negatives came into the possession of the German Photo Library of the Saxon State Library in the 1980s and 1990s .

In 1882 he bought a vineyard house in the Rietzschkegrund of Zitzschewig , a current district of Radebeul , as a summer residence and studio . In the following years he expanded the building with a studio building and a collection building. After his retirement in 1913, he settled there completely.

His house became a museum-like repository for his ever-growing collections, one of which was the admiration for Napoleon.