Franz Joseph Sauterleute (1793-1843)

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Franz Josef Sauterleute came from Altdorf-Weingarten in Upper Swabia. He trained as a porcelain painter at the manufactory in Ludwigsburg, and remained there as chief painter until it closed in 1824. He subsequently received a grant from the King of Württemberg, in order to continue glass-painting projects that had already been begun. He went to Nuremberg, where he met the porcelain- and glass-painter Michael Sigismund Frank (1770–1847), before the latter went to Munich to work for King Maximilian I of Bavaria. Sauterleute acquired his first knowledge of the materials in which he was working in the glass workshops of the princes of Fürstenberg in the Danube and Lauchert valleys. After Frank had moved to Munich, Sauterleute appears to have been the leading glass-painted in Nuremberg, before the Kellner glass-painting family came on the scene.

With a small number of exceptions, Sauterleute focused on the production of small ‘cabinet’ panels, and his attention was particularly attracted by transposing to glass woodcuts of the life of the Virgin Mary by Dürer and scenes from the life of Dürer. Works by Sauterleute may be found in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, and in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

We are fortunate to have good information on Sauterleute’s life, career and work.

Bibliography
Elgin Vaassen, Bilder auf Glas zwischen 1780 und 1870, Berlin, 1997, pp. 162–66

Links
Franz Joseph Sauterleute in ADB (deutsch) 
Michael Sigismund Frank in WIKIPEDIA (englisch)