Joseph Heine - Joseph Heine and Anselm Feuerbach

Joseph Heine and Anselm Feuerbach

Besides numerous friendships with prominent contemporaries, such as the Bavarian minister Theodor von Zwehl (1800–1875), publisher Johann Friedrich Cotta and philosopher and historian Peter Ernst von Lasaulx Heine had a particularly close connection with the Feuerbach family.
Heine had known and admired Karl Wilhelm Feuerbach, the mathematician, since his student years. After Karl's death Heine was good friends with the elder brother Joseph Anselm Feuerbach, who taught archeology in Freiburg. Joseph Heine soon recognized the artistic talent of his friend's son Anselm Feuerbach and tried to encourage and support him. His and von Zwehl's attempt to send the young painter to Wilhelm von Kaulbach in Munich was a failure: in 1850 Feuerbach went to Antwerp instead.

On his way through, Anselm visited Heine in Germersheim, to "get money for the journey out of him", but, in a letter to his mother, had to admit later: "Heine was sullen, and I had to say farewell, politely, at once, I am very sick and tired of him."

This meant the end of the relationship—at least according to available sources. Anselm Feuerbach went to Paris and Rome to become a famous painter. Joseph Heine lost sight of him.

On his retirement in 1875, Joseph Heine received a personal peerage of the Bavarian Kingdom, which made him Joseph von Heine. He lived for two more years in Munich and died there on November 4, 1877.