Ferdinand Leenhoff

Vocation

Notable

Dutch etcher, engraver, sculptor and art professor. He was born in ZaltBommel (Netherlands) as the son of the carillon player and music teacher Carolus Antonius Leenhoff (1807-1878). Because of malnutrition in times of potato disease, and the need to educate her talented children, his mother Johanna Ilcken (1807-1876) went around 1847 with her children to their grandmother in Paris. His sister Suzanne became the piano teacher, lover and later wife of Edouart Manet. His brother Rudolf became a painter. The younger Ferdinand Leenhoff himself studied sculpture under his brother in law Joseph Mezzara (2 March 1820, New York City – 1901, Paris). In 1956 Mezzara had married his sister Mathilde. In 1859, at age 18, Leenhoff debuted with "Mater Dolorosa" at the salon of Paris. Leenhoff was portrayed by his brother in law Eduard Manet in the famous "Déjeuner sur l'Herbe" (1863), sitting behind the model and paintress Victorine Meurent (16 February 1844, Paris - 17 March 1927, Colombes). His brother and painter Rudolf also posed for Manet in Argenteuil (1874), replacing the more famous painter Claude Monet, who wanted to paint, not pose. Etches and sculptures of Leenhoff can be seen in the of Amsterdam. Leenhoff married the daughter of Alphonse François (25 August 1814, Paris - 7 July 1888, Paris), a noted French engraver and also his teacher. Since 1878, he got medals and prices for his impressive engravings. After the death of his father in law, he returned to the Netherlands. From 1890 till 1899 he was professor at the "Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten" in Amsterdam. Leenhoff's (English: "Borrowed garden") classic work depicted nude born "heroic" ancient gods and famous partially dressed "ecce homo" examples before him, like the Rembrandt like engravings of his grandmother. But when he himself was in "Luncheon on the grass" (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), depicted by his genial brother in law Edouart Manet as a normally dressed person, sitting next to an iconic, but not godlike undressed person (the paintress and model Victorine Meurent), with two casually dressed and not godlike at all other persons, by Manet honestly presented as members of "my artist family", the audience of the regular salon of Paris got mad and rejected it (1863). But Manet's in the "Salon des Refusés" (1863) exposed work became a turning point in art history. His "Le déjeuner sur l'herbe" became a cornerstone (Matthew 21:42) of modern art. Ferdinand Leenhoff died on 25 April 1914 in Nice. Link to Dutch Wikipedia