Duveneck the Apprentice

A young altar boy of St. Joseph Church discovered the adjacent Catholic Altar Building Stock Company shortly after it was founded in 1862, and began visiting and helping out the artists and artisans. His name was Frank Duveneck, and he would become one of the most important American artists of the last quarter of the 19th century.

The great painter John Singer Sargent himself is reputed to have stated, at a London, England, dinner party in the 1890’s, that “After all’s said, Frank Duveneck is the greatest talent of the brush of this generation.” Duveneck was only 13- or 14-years-old when the studio first began to operate in Covington, but he had already demonstrated an affinity toward painting. He painted shop signs for a butcher shop and his step-father’s beer garden sometime around 1861, and by the time he began visiting the Stock Company studios he had also painted two charming little genre paintings. One was called “Little Match Girl,” and the other named “Boy with Skein of Yarn.”

Duveneck must have been a favorite in the studios because he quickly became an apprentice, much like in the medieval tradition. Br. Cosmas, Johann Schmitt, and Wilhelm Lamprecht all had important roles nurturing, teaching, and mentoring Frank, and they eventually encouraged him to study at the Royal Academy of Art in Munich—a move that changed his life and artistic outlook.

Duveneck was apprenticed as early as 1862 to Br. Cosmas and Johann Schmitt. From Br. Cosmas he learned how to use tools, carve wood, model figures, and design friezes, as well as gilding. From Johann Schmitt he learned how to mix pigments, clean brushes, paint floral borders, and paint on canvas and wall murals. His painting skills were quickly recognized, and he began to receive painting instruction and assignments. By 1864, Duveneck was an accomplished painter. His confidence in painting “Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception” in the Saint Vincent Art Collections, is evident. It is a well-executed, mature work, which belies his age of 15-years-old at the time. The literature is unclear about when Duveneck was at the monastery in Latrobe, but the painting’s date of 1864 suggests that he was there then.

In 1866, the studio was working on a project in Newark, New Jersey, at a Benedictine monastery founded by Saint Vincent Abbey in Latrobe. The commission included a high altar, two side altars, and murals for St. Mary’s Church, which had been recently built. The exact times Duveneck was in Newark are unknown, but a letter from Br. Cosmas to Frank and his parents dated February 25, 1866, suggests he was in Newark in 1865 and then went back to Covington. Wilhelm Lamprecht joined the studio on this project in 1867, and was responsible for painting the ten murals which were based on a schema by Br. Cosmas. Duveneck returned to Newark at that time to assist Lamprecht.

The lengthy letter indicates that Br. Cosmas was literate, articulate, and pious, and that he had a warm and fatherly relationship with Duveneck, who would have been 17-years-old at the time. It encourages him, gives him advice, and states that if he still planned to go to Munich to study, Br.Cosmas would make arrangements for a Herr Scharrer to act as his guardian and teacher. He then addressed Frank’s parents and asks if they would support their son in this endeavor, and if they could afford to pay $150 a year for two or three years for his room and board. He cautions them not to give the money directly to Frank, but to give it to the guardian to disperse as needed.

Besides the usual advice one would give to a young man about to embark on a study abroad adventure, he reminds Duveneck: “But!! take special pains with your drawing. That is more important for you than free-hand painting.” Also in the letter is a curious little statement: “My greetings to all the good people of Covington, but not to the master shoemaker, John Schmitt; the thankless man didn’t even call on me. But he won’t ever get another cent’s worth of work out of me!”

Is the reference to the “master shoemaker John Schmitt” actually an insult against the painter, Johann Schmitt? Did the two of them have a falling out? The invective seems to be too strong to be against an actual shoemaker, with whom it is presumed he would have had a less-intense and infrequent relationship. But, it makes sense if Br. Cosmas felt the painter had slighted him. Making the comment to Frank is also understandable because he would have known both of them and known the circumstances of any disagreement. It is interesting to note that from 1866 on, when Br. Cosmas collaborates with a painter it is with Wilhelm Lamprecht, and not Johann Schmitt.

Duveneck’s parents agreed to support Frank while he studied art in Munich, but they wanted him to wait until he was twenty-one. In the meantime, after executing the murals in Newark, Lamprecht took Duveneck with him as an assistant to decorate other churches in Montreal, Quebec, and Philadelphia. In 1868, they were in Quebec decorating the church of St.-Romuald d’Etchemin, which has been designated a historic monument by the minister of culture in Quebec. Lamprecht continued to teach Frank drawing and painting, and permitted him to fill in some of the larger areas of his church murals. An interesting account of Lamprecht’s teaching methods was recorded by Frank’s daughter-in-law, Josephine Duveneck:

[Lamprecht] was a strict task master. Every morning before breakfast he made Frank draw two or three eyes until he found out how to do it with skill and dispatch. This discipline stood him in good stead in later years, for nearly all of the Duveneck portraits look out of their frames with startlingly life-like eyes.

Duveneck would continue studying and working with Lamprecht and the studio until he left for his studies in Munich in 1870.