Born June 17, 1835 (died 1907) as Julius Erdmann August Naue in Köthen, Julius Naue was a German painter, illustrator and archaeologist primarily known for his illustrations of archaeological subjects and historic Germanic costumes. He also executed at least three murals based on Nordic myth and legend in private homes.  At present, these works appear to be lost leaving few traces in the public record, other than detailed descriptions of those works in Paul Hermanowski's  Die Deutsche Götterlehre und ihre Verwertung in Kunst und Dichtung, Volumes 1-2 "The German  Mythology and its Use in Art and Poetry" (1874).

Due to unfortunate circumstances, he was unable to devote himself to art until late. His curriculum vitae shows that Naue left the high school in his hometown Köthen at the request of his parents without a degree. He completed an apprenticeship as a bookseller in Köthen, then in Nuremberg with August von Kreling, and later in Munich with Moritz von Schwind for artistic training.  As a student of von Kreling, Naue mainly studied nature and Albrecht Dürer whose great passion he later reproduced as woodcuts. He moved to Munich, where Moritz von Schwind accepted him among his students. Naue came to work for von Schwind in Munich where he remained until 1866. His first picture under the direction of his new master was an Annunciation of the Virgin, which received general recognition at the exhibition of the Historical Art Association in Prague in 1862. With his picture "The Nordic Saga" (watercolor, 1864) , he entered the realm of Romanticism. This was followed by his The Toad Ring in 1865. In recent times, he composed 8 cartons for frescoes for the Villa Lingg —figures from Lingg's epic depicting the Great Migration in the spirit of the poem. After his master's death in the late 1860s, Naue executed a third variant of Schwind’s Cinderella cycle, presenting  his audience with six monumental paintings retelling the gripping story of Cinderella, her brave suffering and glorious redemption. He co-authored a biography of von Schwind and also made etchings and drawings for woodcuts after Moritz von Schwind, painted cycles of epic murals in private residences based on Greek and Germanic mythology, as well as embarked on archeaological endeveavors. Naue devoted himself to more detailed studies, partially ancient, especially Greek, numismatics partially the pre-Roman antiquities of Bavaria; his work in these fields was the basis upon which he applied for a doctorate of philosophy at the University of Tübingen in 1887.  

[Source: Mark Schmidt, Alte Akten – Neue Gräber? Marginalien zu Julius Naue und Johannes Dorn, 2006.]     

The  Last  Apprentice of Moritz von Schwind An Introduction to Germanic Mythology

In 1864, Julius Naue painted  Moritz von Schwind's  illustrations for Schloss Hohenschwangau. The reconstruction of the old Hohenschwangau Castle on the Tyrolean Bavarian border, which the Crown Prince Maximilian of Bavaria arranged, created room for a large number of compositions to be performed there.  Schwind was entrusted with the drafts and he set to work with his assistant Julius Naue. This extremely rich cycle begins with Norse mythology. Two connected rooms contain the visit by the spring god to Hertha the Earth, who receives him with her earth and water spirits according to the Edda. This is followed by representations from the Wilkina- and Niflunga sagas; above doors the individual floating figures of  Sintram, who is carried through the air by the dragon, until Dietrich and Fasold free him and Wieland escapes on  self-made wings.

Wieland der Schmeid  Mortiz von Schwind   Illustration for Schloss Hohenschwangau (1864) Julius Naue for Moritz von Schwind

Then individual female figures: King Nidung's daughter with the ring, or perhaps Isolde with the ring who wears the love stone, Herburg with the apple and another figure, the romantic adventures of Osantrix and Oda, Herbart and Hilda. The artist continues on in the story of Dietrich von Bern. A larger picture, landscape format, shows how he mediated the duel with Wittich the Strong. Hildebrand enters into friendship with his opponent. Pictures, slightly smaller in height show how Dietrich and Hildebrand admire the Nagelring sword, which was coersed from the dwarf Alpris, and prepare to kill the giant couple Grim and Hilda with it, while the dwarf looks on from the rock. A room of the same size contains the Raven battle [die Raben schlacht] in which Erp and Ortwin are slain by Wittich.Then individual female figures: King Nidung's daughter with the ring, or perhaps Isolde with the ring who wears the love stone, Herburg with the apple and another figure, the romantic adventures of Osantrix and Oda, Herbart and Hilda. The artist continues on in the story of Dietrich von Bern. A larger picture, landscape format, shows how he mediated the duel with Wittich the Strong. Hildebrand enters into friendship with his opponent. Pictures, slightly smaller in height show how Dietrich and Hildebrand admire the Nagelring sword, which was coersed from the dwarf Alpris, and prepare to kill the giant couple Grim and Hilda with it, while the dwarf looks on from the rock. A room of the same size contains the Raven battle [die Raben schlacht] in which Erp and Ortwin are slain by Wittich.   In 1865, Naue's Die Nordische Saga, in three pictures and a relief. In 1873-74, Naue revisited von Schwind's Cinderella, painting it on six panels in the ballroom of the Roman House in Leipzig  in wax colors.

The documents for Julius Naue's doctorate are kept in the archive of the University of Tübingen under the filename 131/37b, no. 8. These consist of the doctoral application, a curriculum vitae in both German and Latin, an expert opinion written by Ernst von Herzog —a professor of classical studies and the decision of the faculty.  In the biographical Curriculum Vitae dated Janauary 1887, Julius Naue writes:

"Born on July 17th, 1834 in Cöthen in the Duchy of Anhalt (as the only son of a Country doctor), I received a very careful upbringing and attended the local High school with good results and studied anatomy with the late Dr. Carl Schmidt, best known as an anthropologist and pedagogue. Even as a boy I had a keen interest in art and science, and so it was my dearest wish to be able to devote myself to one or the other. It was only my parents' express will that led me to the book trade, which I learned in Cöthen and worked as an assistant in Nuremberg, Antwerp and Danzig for a few years. Yet I used each free hour to try out fine arts and to study philosophy, history, greek, roman, german and norse mythology, anatomy, perspective etc., which gives me the urge to devote myself entirely to art, in the end like this. "It became so irresistible that in 1856, I went from Danzig to Nuremberg, where for five years I studied restlessly at the Royal Art school under A. Kreling’s direction, but at the same time the aforementioned disciplines continued to occupy me, especially the German and Nordic mythology. In 1860 I moved to Munich, where I was given the opportunity to work in Nuremberg for Kreling, producing copies under Kaulbach’s direction of Albrecht Dürer (published by J. Zürer in Nuremberg), which immediately got me accepted into the studio of Professor Moritz von Schwind. I was the last and, I may say, most preferred student of the great master; it was he who introduced me to great historical art, and when he dismissed me from his school he remained a fatherly friend to me until his death in 1871. During my years of study with him, I also had the anatomical lectures of Professor Dr. J. Kollmann at the art academy. "In the years 1865 to 1886, during which I also made repeated study trips to Rome, Florence, Ravenna, Paris and other important homesteads of art and science, I carried out numerous smaller works - paintings, etchings, drawings for woodcuts —the following picture cycles from: 1) The legend of Emperor Heinrich I and the Princess Ilse in three large watercolor paintings. in the Owned by Mr. O. Mai [...] in Berlin. 2) The story of the great migration; 15 large charcoal cartoons. Published in photographs in 1874, in 2 editions (a large one from J. Albert here and a smaller one from Franz Leyde in Nuremberg). 3) The six hero kings of the Germanic Tribes' Great Migration together with the "mourning Roma" and the "triumphant Germania", two great doors, in almost life-size figures painted al fresco in the Villa H. Lingg near Lindau. 4) The legend of Prometheus. Watercolor fresco owned by Mr. A. O. Meyer in Hamburg. 5) from German mythology: "The Fate of the Gods". Large watercolor frieze of around 10 Meters in length owned by Mr. A. O. Meyer in Hamburg. 6) The fairy tale of Cinderella; 6 pictures in the ballroom of the "Roman House" of Dr. G. Friederici painted in wax colors in Leipzig. 7) from the Edda: "Helgi and Sigrun", 8 pictures with 2/3 life-size figures painted al tempera in the hall of Wahlow Castle near Malchow in Meklenburg. "All of these works were favorably assessed by art critics. The comprehensive historical studies which I have made for the purpose of the conception and execution of the made the aforementioned works, and the scientific suggestions I had with the artistic ones on my travels led me to the ancient, especially Greek Numismatics, to which I devoted several years in addition to my artistic creations, and in which I acquired so much and thorough knowledge that my name in numismatic circles is mentioned with appreciation."

[Source: Mark Schmidt, Alte Akten – Neue Gräber? Marginalien zu Julius Naue und Johannes Dorn, 2006.]

1867 Julius Naue The Legend of Kaiser Heinrich I and the Princess Ilse

The Legend of Kaiser Heinrich and Princess Ilse, painted in watercolor, in three parts, is signed in the lower right "J. Naue 1867". The five-part tapestry frieze is set in the forests of the Harz Mountains, depicting scenes from the Harz saga trilogy of Princess Ilse together with legendary episodes from the life of the Saxon king Heinrich I. On both sides, at the foot of mighty oak trunks, sit two allegorical female figures:  on the left Saga, the one who is listening to "tales from the distant past" told by the Saga, looking up from a scroll on the right. The pictures of the carpet frieze show the following scenes from left to right:     1. While hunting in a grotto, young Heinrich meets Princess Ilse, a fairy.     2. The Princess Ilse instructs the attentive Heinrich and inaugurates him as the future King of the Germans.     3. The main picture shows King Heinrich I as a “town builder who lets the inhabitants of pillaged estates and villages move into a newly built town.     4. Princess Ilse hovers over the river in the peaceful Ilse valley, lined with castles and towns, with arms open to protect.    5. Princess Ilse floats above Heinrich's deathbed. His second wife Mathilde sits mournfully at the dying man's feet, the grown-up princes Otto, the successor to the throne, and Heinrich, Duke of Bavaria, stand at his hips; next to the father kneels the youngest Prince Bruno, later Archbishop of Cologne. The Munich City Museum owns twelve sheets with drafts and detailed sketches in pencil and pen and ink. The lively Eichnerian freedom of this preparatory work is largely reduced in the watercolor frieze and now allows Naue's scholarly bond with his teacher Moritz von Schwind, in whose workshop he was active from 1860 to 1866, to emerge more strongly. Immediately after completion, the frieze was shown in the Munich Art Association in 1867, at the 3rd General German Art Exhibition in Vienna in 1868 and at the International Art Exhibition in Munich in 1869. Source: .pdf file

Julius Naue 1868    Germanic Hero-Kings of the Migration Period Germanischen Heldenkönige der Völkerwanderung Villa Lingg, Lindau im Bodensee

Of the frescoes on a gold background in a hall of the "Villa Seewarte" (aka Villa Lingg) of the Munich merchant Heinrich Lingg near Lindau on Lake Constance.  Dr. Konrad Ritter von Zdekauer in his  Kriegs- und Friedensfahrten, Band 1, (1881) observes: "Here, at the place where the poet Hermann Lingg wrote his mighty epic, 'Der Völkerwanderung' his brother, the art-loving merchant Heinrich Lingg, erected a memorial to this most important of the recent national heroic poems, otherwise only donated through princely patronage. Lingg let Julius Naue, a pupil of Schwind, paint frescos of the most prominent figures of the migration as their subject in the hall of his country house. When you enter through the vestibule, you can see the youthful Germania and the aged Roma which has been overcome, on the walls on both sides of the window. On the opposite side, these figures are aptly pronounced, the painter has based their characterization wholly on the poetry presented with great understanding."

     
   In 1868,  the wealthy merchant Heinrich Lingg, the brother of the German poet Hermann Lingg [pictured], had returned from America and bought a plot of land in a beautiful bay on Lake Constance near Lindau and built a villa on it. When the building was finished, he privately commissioned Julius Naue to adorn the principle chamber of Villa Lingg with eight monumental frescoes, each seven feet in height, illustrative of Lingg's popular poem, Die Völkerwanderung (The Migration of Peoples). A trip to the old Italian city of Ravenna was planned for the studies necessary for the paintings in the company of Hermann and Heinrich Lingg. The city is particularly strange and alluring for Germans. Here the Cheruscan Arminius son was brought as a prisoner, kings of the Goths and Longobards ruled here, and in Verona the heroic songs of the Migration Period were heard at court. The stories of Alboin and Dietrich von Bern reside there, because Bern was Verona. According to Hermann Lingg's diary, they had a very comfortable stay, visiting old Byzantine churches with their portraits of people, the districts named after the Goth king, his tomb and the remains of his palace. On the way home, they visited Florence, where they admired the galleries, then returned to Germany without further stay. Afterward, Naue remained in Lindau to apply the studies made in Italy to his frescoes in Villa Ling. 

That same year, painter Julius Naue exhibited eight cartoons at an art expo in Munich which were to be painted al fresco in the villa of the merchant Lingg in Lindau. The subject is composed of the most outstanding heroes from the Great Migration. The walls to the hall entrance will be decorated with figures representing Rome (Roma), Germania, and six great Germanic Hero-kings of the Migration period [Die 6 grössten germanischen Heldenkönige der Völkerwanderung], including Alaric at Rome, Odoacer surrendering Ravenna to Theodoric, the Frank  Chlodwig, the Lombard Alboin, Geiserich the King of the Vandals, and other chief personages and events of that era.   These figures with their characteristic emblems stand in round arches around which festoons wind, and show good characterization, Chlodwig and Albion are especially well executed.  Ferdinand Gregorovius, a vistor to the home in late September of 1868 remarked, "Visited the villa of Lingg, a merchant and brother of the poet of Völkerwanderungen. He has some of the barbarian kings of the poem painted in fresco in his room beside the Germania and Roma of which he seems not a little proud." 

Today Villa Lingg, at Schachener Straße 103, Lindau im Bodensee, is described as the former summer residence of the physician Heinrich Lingg, a late classicist cross-gable building after the mid-19th century,  with flat gable roofs projecting on the lakeside, Belvedere structure with tower of stairs; interior frescoes by Julius Naue around 1870; associated greenhouse and octagonal bathing house on the harbor.   So all or some of the frescos are still there. 

 (Source: Über Land und Meer: allgemeine illustrirte Zeitung 1868).
       

1872 Red pencil drawing of Amalasuntha, Daughter of the East-Gothic King, Theoderich the Great

Katalog der Internationalen Kunst-Ausstellung zu München, 1879 Eight Cartoons to the Frescos for the Villa Lingg by Lindau:   480. The Mourning Roma 481. The Triumphant Germania     The 6 Germanic Hero-Kings of the Great Migration:       482. Alarich, King of the West Goths 483. Geiserich, King of the Vandals 484. Chlodowig, King of the Franks 485. Alboin, King of the Lombards 486. Odoaker, King of the Hercules 487. Theodorich, King of the East Goths

   

The main hall contains a row of eight 7 foot high frescos with two great doors as their connecting links , painted gray on gray, with the scenes the "Storming of Rome by Alarich" and the "Surrender of Ravenna from Odoaker to Theodorich".

 Opposite the entrance on the south wall, ones gaze falls on two female figures, the personifications of the then-opposing political, social and cultural forces, the old mourning "Roma" and "Germania", radiant with a youthful freshness and volatility. The aged Roma, with a grief-stricken face, leans with her right hand on a broken pillar shaft, still holding on to the peeled laurel, while the left lies over her mournful head, the crown of the world ruler has fallen from her forehead and lies broken next to the scepter at her feet. How youthful, on the other hand, Germania shines across from her, a graceful, charming figure, her golden head wrapped in oak leaves, her eyes dazzling.

         Architectural Drawing for Villa Lingg (1868)

The Mourning Roma (Left) and the Triumphant Germania (Right)
Four motifs: Roma, Germania, Odoacer, and Theodoric, each titled and dated 4 June 1867.

Then on the west wall the curly blonde Eastgoth Alarich and the Vandal Geiserich follow, the first in stoic demeanor, the other in violent motion. Alaric has a wolfskin thrown over his shoulders as a mantel, leather hugs his body tightly, and over it his armor. His head, which bears the royal crown, tops a wonderfully powerful figure that leans on his halberd, which appears to have grown out of the ground.

Quite different is Geiserich, whose raw Vandal-nature is expressed in the broad structure of his body and his impetuous, passionate mood. His right foot rests on a broken column. In his right hand, he holds a mace raised menacingly, with a wild excitement in his eyes, his whole being breathes obstinacy. His is the barbarianism that resorts to brute force. He wears a long garment with oriental ornamentation, the cloak thrown over it flutters behind him, his head is covered by the Phrygian cap, over it is the crown of Jugurtha —the barbarian on the throne.

Albion, The King of the Lombards The Hero-Kings of the Migration Period

Geiserich the Vandal King The Hero-Kings of the Migration Period

 

The north wall is occupied by the Franconian Clovis [Chlodwig, Chlodvig] and the Longobard Alboin, along with the Germania, perhaps the best and most characteristic figures of the entire cycle. The seriousness that the figure Clovis exudes is enhanced by the dark, heavy color in which it is painted. On his troubled forehead one can read his many internal struggles.  A luminous figure, on the other hand, is that of the Lombard king, Alboin, who stands in youthful beauty and strength, with a holly wreath wrapped around his head, holding a lyre with his left hand, while his right holds up the fateful cup. At first glance one recognizes the multiple relationships which the artist has expressed, since Rosamunde inadvertantly comes to mind.

Albion, King of the Lombards

Theodorich, King of the East Goths

The final figures of Odoacer, Prince of the Herules, and Theodoric the Great adorn the east wall.  Calmness, prudence, and awareness of his goals and objectives characterize the German prince, who delivered the fatal blow to the long withered Roman power, and initiated German world domination for hundreds of years.  In Theodorich, the legislature appears to be understood by the scroll he holds with its motto: "Qui amat justitiam amat me" ("Who loves me, loves justice"). The individual images are on a gold background with decorations corresponding to the time, executed within Roman arches over which garlands of flowers and fruits are hung. 

The Story of the Great Migration: A Picture-cycle, 15 charcoal cartoons, 1871 Die Geschichte der Grossen Völkerwanderung        In the years 1869–71 he drew 15 large cartoons on the History of the Age of Migrations (reproduced in collotype):

1. The Mourning Rome 2. The Triumphant Germania 3. Alaric is proclaimed King of the Visigoths in Greece, 398 4. Alaric is buried in Busento and mourned by his people, 410 5. Radegast, Duke of the Vandals, is captured, 407 6. Radegast is imprisoned in Ravenna on the orders of Emperor Honorius, 407 7. The Battle of the Catalan Fields, 451 8. Attila, the King of the Huns, is found choked in blood on the morning of his wedding, 453 Holzschnitt Illustr. Zeitung, 1875. 9. The Germanic princes celebrate the liberation from Attila's yoke at Theudomir in Pannonia and greet little Theodoric as King, 455 10. Odoacer at St. Severin 476 11. Theodoric the Great and the Ostrogoths Entry into Italy, 488 12. Theodoric by the body of Odoacer, who was murdered in anger by him, 493 13. Vitigis his sisters and aunties are brought before the deadly ill Empress Theodora as prisoners by Belisarius in Delphi, 537 14. An old sorceress shows Roman warriors the Gothic king Totilas, who fell in battle, 552 15. Tejas is proclaimed king of the Ostrogoths in Italy, 552 The Complete Cycle Comprises 15 Cartoons. [view here]     Attila, the King of the Huns, is found dead (1875)

In 1872-1873, for Arnold Otto Meyer in Hamburg, Naue executed in watercolor  a three-part Prometheus-cycle: The Theft of Fire, the Bound Prometheus with the Oceanids weeping, and the Liberated Prometheus.  In 1873, the deluxe edition of Eduard Mörike's Historie af den Schönen Lau ("The Story of the Lovely Lau") appeared with Naue's outline etchings for illustrations designed by Moritz von Schwind.  In 1874, he spent the winter in Rome.

Professor Dr. Julius Naue, Archaeologist and History Painter

In his preoccupation with history painting, Naue seems to have come into contact with numismatics. According to him, his name was  "mentioned in numismatic circles ... with recognition." In an article published in der Berliner Zeitschrift für Numismatik, Vol. VIII, Naue concluded: "The portrait of King Lysimachus of Thrace on Greek coins, it can be demonstrated that on the coins before 306 BC, the head is not that of Lysimachus, but Alexander the Great."   He pioneered research into the pre-Roman antiquities of Bavaria. From 1881 to 1886 he examined no less than 460 burial mounds and 40 row graves "in a strictly systematic manner" starting at the Ammersee and "from there going step-by-step to the south to the Rieg- und Staffel-See at the foot of the high mountains." As an archaeologist, Naue made a presentation on prehistoric swords (Die prähistorischen Schwerter), specifically Bronze Age swords, for the Anthropological Society in Munich in 1884. The "Naue" type of Bronze Age sword is named for him. Self-taught, Naue published various smaller treatises for which he proceeded to compile in a dissertation at Tübingen University in 1887, Die Hügelgräber zwischen Ammer- und Staffelsee, for which he earned a doctorate.

According to Mark Schmidt (2006), the doctoral application submitted by Naue, as well as the  written reports by Herzog allow the correction of a small but evidently widespread error. Contrary to previous biographaphers, [Heierli, 1907; Gummel, 1938; Filip, 1966 and Koschik, 1981], Naue did not earn his doctorate in Tübingen on account of his excavation and scholarly publications, particularly the book "The Barrows Between Ammer and Staffelsee", 1887; Naue himself acknowledged that the lack of regular university studies and other preconditions prevented him from applying for a doctorate. However, the positive reaction to his previous achievements in the field of numismatics and prehistoric research, prompted his request to be classified as "reasonably justified".   

 
Grave of a Seeress near Munich, drawn by Julius Naue

In the field of local Bavarian research, Naue is recognized to have made an outstanding contribution.  That Naue knew and mastered "the most important German, French, Italian, English and Scandinavian works relevant to the history of the pre-Roman period" can hardly be doubted. Munich owes its prehistoric Museum to Naue's six-year excavation activities and is recognized as such in the journal of the Bavarian Art Trade Association, 1887, issue 3. On the occasion of the opening of the Prehistoric State Collection in 1889, Naue modestly described his own finds as the foundation of the museum. He also planned a multi-volume work on "The Bronze Age in Upper Bavaria" (Die Bronzezeit in Oberbayernn), but only published the first volume in 1894.

Hortari dem Jungenn
Julius Naue

"Inspired by Felix Dahn's Felicitas, the artist depicted the young Bavarian prince with a boldly curved single-edged iron sword and a raised round shield. The belt buckle and the fitting are work inlaid with silver as they came to light in the Bavarian row graves."

King Högni, King Hodbroddr, Sigrun. Three Head-studies in Red Pencil for the Tempera-picture cycle 'Helgi and Sigrun' on the Schlosse Wahlow bei Malchow in Mecklenburg-Schwerin.