Through the stable door to Prince Albert? On Gottfried ... · Through the stable door to Prince...

Journal of Art Historiography Number 11 December 2014

Through the stable door to Prince Albert?

On Gottfried Semper’s London connections

Dieter Weidmann

Preface

Gottfried Semper’s London connections in general have been explored by Wolfgang

Herrmann, Harry Francis Mallgrave, Sonja Hildebrand and others.1 Initiated by a

current research and edition project, this article specifically investigates personal

relations that inspired or enabled Semper to write and publish texts in his five

London years.2 The letters of Semper’s estate, preserved in the archives of the

Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) at the Eidgenössische

Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich, are its most important sources.3

1 Klaus Lankheit, ‘Gottfried Semper und die Weltausstellung London 1851’, in: Eva Börsch-

Supan and others, Gottfried Semper und die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Symposion vom 2. bis 6.

Dezember 1974, veranstaltet durch das Institut für Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur an der

Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule Zürich (= Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Geschichte und

Theorie der Architektur an der Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule Zürich 18), Basel and

Stuttgart: Birkhäuser, 1976, 23–47; Gert Reising, ‘Kunst, Industrie und Gesellschaft. Gottfried

Semper in England’, in: Börsch-Supan and others, Gottfried Semper und die Mitte des 19.

Jahrhunderts, 49–66; Wolfgang Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil. Paris, London 1849–1855.

Zur Entstehung des ‘Stil’ 1840–1877 (= Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Geschichte und Theorie der

Architektur an der Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule Zürich 19), Basel and Stuttgart:

Birkhäuser, 1978, 28–90; Harry Francis Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper. Architect of the Nineteenth

Century, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996, 189–227; Sonja Hildebrand,

‘“… grossartigere Umgebungen” – Gottfried Semper in London’, in: Winfried Nerdinger and

Werner Oechslin, eds, Gottfried Semper 1803–1879. Architektur und Wissenschaft, Munich,

Berlin, London and New York: Prestel, and Zurich: gta Verlag, 2003, 260–268. 2 This article is an outcome of the workshop ‘Gottfried Semper in London 1850–55’ held at

the Accademia di architettura, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Mendrisio, on 26

February 2014, as part of the research and edition project ‘Architecture and the Globalization

of Knowledge in the 19th Century: Gottfried Semper and the Discipline of Architectural

History’ headed by Sonja Hildebrand (USI, responsible) and Philip Ursprung (ETH Zurich,

co-responsible) with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Its author

is indebted to Sonja Hildebrand and Elena Chestnova for their assistance in composing and

translating it. 3 All letters mentioned and quoted in this article belong to Semper’s estate, gta archives, ETH

Zurich, if no other provenance is indicated. The same also applies to the drawing mentioned

in the footnote 49 and the manuscripts mentioned in the footnotes 26, 50, 93 and 110. For the

Dieter Weidmann Through the stable door to Prince Albert?


2

Figure 1 Emil Braun, letter to Gottfried Semper, 16 September 1850. Ink on paper, 22,4 cm · 13,7 cm. ETH Zurich, gta

archives, Semper estate, 20-K-1850-09-16:1.

purpose of comprehensibility, the punctuation marks and the French accents in the quoted

parts of these letters are tacitly adapted to the current conventions.



3

New York? London!

Semper escaped from Dresden on 9 May 1849 when Prussian and Saxon troops

defeated the revolt in which he had participated in support of democratic rights and

the unity of the German states.4 In the first letter written after his escape, he already

declared his intention to emigrate to North America.5 However, he settled in Paris

for fifteen months, hoping to find a suitable job in France or some other European

country. As his hope turned out to be vain, he decided to emigrate to New York and

begin a professional partnership with Karl Gildemeister,6 the German architect who,

ironically, won the competition for the building of the American Exhibition of the

Industry of All Nations in 1852 with another partner, the Dane Georg Carstensen.7

Semper resolved to depart from Le Havre on 19 September 1850.8 In late August he

went to London for a week ‘on business’.9 He probably consulted Price Pritchard

Baly there, the designer of the exemplary Goulston Square Washhouse in

Whitechapel, since he intended to establish public bath- and washhouses in New

York.10 On the eve of his definite departure he received an urgent letter which, in

spite of its vagueness, made him change his mind and stay in Europe.11 [Fig. 1.] But

until he was permanently employed in the autumn of 1852, he never excluded the

possibility of emigrating to North America.12

4 For biographical facts of Semper’s exile years see Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 10–93,

and Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, 165–227. 5 [Gottfried Semper], letter to J[ohann] C[arl] Semper, 1[4] May 184[9], 20-K-1849-05-14(S). 6 Semper’s former student Wilhelm Heine had initiated this partnership. W[ilhelm] Heine,

letter to [Gottfried Semper], 18 May 1850, 20-K-1850-05-18; K[arl] Gildemeister and

W[ilhelm] Heine, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 2 July 1850, 20-K-1850-07-02. 7 Geo[rge] Carstensen and Ch[arle]s Gildemeister, New York Crystal Palace. Illustrated

Description of the Building, New York: Riker and Thorne, 1854, 11–12. Compare M[oritz]

Seelig, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 26 September 1852, 20-K-1852-09-26. 8 Gottfried [Semper], letter to [Johann] Carl (‘Karl’) [Semper], 11 September 1850, 20-K-1850-

09-11(S). 9 [Gottfried Semper], fragmentary letter draft to [Louis] Pusinelli, [July 1850], 20-K-1850-

07(S):2. Compare Gottfried [Semper], letter to [Johann] Carl (‘Karl’) [Semper], 11 September

1850, 20-K-1850-09-11(S). 10 Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 28. 11 Emil Braun, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 16 September 1850, 20-K-1850-09-16:1. Compare

C[harles] Séchan, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 17 September 1850, 20-K-1850-09-17:2. – Braun

addressed his letter to ‘Mister Semper, famous Architect. Care of Mr. Hittorf. Rue la Martine

40 Paris’ (‘Monsieur Semper, Architecte célèbre. Aux bienveillants soins de Mr. Hittorf. Rue

la Martine 40 Paris’). Jakob Ignaz Hittorff transferred it to Charles Séchan who wrote to

Semper on 17 September 1850: ‘I send you a letter which seems very urgent […].’ (‘Je vous

adresse une lettre qui parait très pressée […].’) 12 Compare Julie [Becher], letter to Albrecht Becher, 29 July [18]51, 20-K(DD)-1851-07-29;

Wilhelm [Meyer], letter to Adolph and Ludwig Meyer, 19 January 1852, 20-K(DD)-1852-01-



4

Emil Braun

The writer of that letter was the German archaeologist Emil Braun, the secretary of

the Roman Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica, whom Semper called his

‘former patron and colleague at the Society of Antiquities in Rome’.13 Yet, the two

men had not met at that Institute in 1833, the year of Braun’s travel from Berlin to

Rome and Semper’s travel from Rome to Berlin,14 nor is there any evidence that they

had met in Italy or Germany later. Braun, who had guided Prince Albert through

Rome in 1839, had family and business connections in England: he was married to

an English lady, Anne Thomson, and cooperated with two Birmingham companies,

Elkington and Mason, and Peach and Mint.15 Staying in London for a short time,

Braun had been informed about Semper’s intention to emigrate by the English

19; [Gottfried Semper], fragmentary letter to Bertha [Semper], [August 1852], 20-K-1852-

08(S). 13 G[ottfried] Semper, letter to [Johann Carl Semper], 30 September and 1 October 1850, 20-K-

1850-10-01(S). – Herrmann has erroneously referred this expression to Christian Carl Josias

von Bunsen. Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 30. – Semper had been included ‘in the list

of the corresponding members’ of the Roman Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica in

December 1833; and on 2 February 1834 the directors of this institute had announced: ‘The

directors, for the purpose of relieving the duties imposed on the vice secretary Mr.

Kellermann, have appointed the member Emilio BRAUN as librarian and subarchivist.’ (‘La

Direzione, ad effetto di alleviare le cure adossate [!] al pro-segretario sig. Kellermann, ha

nominato a bibliotecario e sottoarchivista il socio sig. Emilio BRAUN.’) [Christian Carl Josias

von] Bunsen, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 26 December 1833, 20-K-1833-12-26; [Christian

Carl Josias von Bunsen and others] (‘La Direzione’), ‘Avvisi della Direzione’ (2 February

1834), Bullettino dell’Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica 6, no. 1a, January 1834, 16. 14 Compare G[ottfried] Semper, letter to [Johanna Maria] Semper, 5 August 1833, 20-K-1833-

08-05(S); Gottfried [Semper], letter to [Elise Semper], 26 December 1833, 20-K-1833-12-26(S);

Helga Schmidt and Paul Gerhard Schmidt, Emil Braun, ‘ein Mann der edelsten Begabung von

Herz und Geist’. Archäologe, Kunstagent, Fabrikant und homöopathischer Arzt (= Bernhard von

Lindenau als Gelehrter, Staatsmann, Menschenfreund und Förderer der schönen Künste, edited by

Lindenau-Museum Altenburg), Altenburg: Lindenau-Museum Altenburg, 2010, 31–32. 15 Peach and Mint, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 2 October 1851, 20-K-1851-10-02; [Gottfried

Semper], fragmentary letter draft to Peach and Mint, 3 October 1851, 20-K-1851-10-03(S);

Schmidt and Schmidt, Emil Braun, 14, 46, 48, 62–63; Jonathan Marsden, Mr Green and Mr

Brown: Ludwig Grüner and Emil Braun in the service of Prince Albert, London: Royal Collection

Trust, 2012, 2–3 (download extract of: Susanna Avery-Quash, ed., Victoria & Albert. Art &

Love. Essays from a study day held at the National Gallery, London on 5 and 6 June 2010, London:

Royal Collection Trust, 2012;

http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/sites/default/files/V%20and%20A%20Art%20and%20Lov

e%20(Marsden).pdf, accessed on 31 August 2014); Kathryn Jones, ‘To wed high art with

mechanical skill’: Prince Albert and the industry of art, London: Royal Collection Trust, 2012, 5

(download extract of: Susanna Avery-Quash, ed., Victoria & Albert. Art & Love. Essays from a

study day held at the National Gallery, London on 5 and 6 June 2010, London: Royal Collection

Trust, 2012;

http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/sites/default/files/V%20and%20A%20Art%20and%20Lov

e%20(Jones).pdf, accessed on 31 August 2014).



5

architect Edward Falkener,16 and trying to dissuade Semper from leaving Europe, he

explained to him:

As an admirer of your beautiful talent and your superb works, I wish to

provide everything to keep you among us. I believe myself to be in a position

to offer or at least to indicate to you a field of activity for your artistic practice

that promises to become no less glamorous than the one you left behind.17

Braun described this field on 22 September 1850. He told Semper that the General

Board of Health had resolved to construct several huge cemeteries about which he

had been consulted, and he asked Semper to transform them ‘into antique cities of

the dead’.18 At first Semper wanted to reject Braun’s offer. In a fragmentary letter

draft he wrote:

After careful consideration, long indecision and the unanimous opinion of my

local friends (of Mister Hittorff, Gau and others whom I had to tell the matter

of our negotiations […]) I am determined not to accept your kind invitation,

but to really undertake the postponed journey to New York on the 29th of this

month.19

Reflecting on his wife’s and his six children’s misery, he changed his mind. On 28

September he moved to London, and two days later he wrote to his eldest brother,

Johann Carl: ‘Were I alone in this world, I would have ignored the letter and

followed the impulse that seemed to have been giving a westward direction to the

course of my life.’20

16 Falkener had just come back ‘from the Continent’, obviously from Paris. Emil Braun, letter

to [Gottfried Semper], 22 September 1850, 20-K-1850-09-22. 17 ‘Als ein Verehrer Ihres schönen Talents und Ihrer herrlichen Werke möchte ich gern alles

aufbieten, Sie bei uns zurückzuhalten. Ich glaube, im Stande zu sein, Ihnen ein Feld für Ihre

künstlerische Thätigkeit darzubieten oder wenigstens nachzuweisen, welches nicht weniger

ruhmreich zu werden verspricht als das, welches Sie verlaszen haben.’ Emil Braun, letter to

[Gottfried] Semper, 16 September 1850, 20-K-1850-09-16:1. 18 Emil Braun, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 22 September 1850, 20-K-1850-09-22. 19 ‘Nach reiflicher Ueberlegung, langem Schwanken und dem übereinstimmenden Urtheile

meiner hiesigen Freunde, (des Herrn Hittorff, Gau’s und anderer, denen ich den Inhalt

unserer Unterhandlungen mittheilen musste […]) bin ich entschlossen, Ihrer gütigen

Einladung nicht nachzukommen, sondern die aufgeschobene Reise nach New York am 29ten

dieses wirklich anzutreten.’ [Gottfried Semper], fragmentary letter draft to [Emil Braun],

[September 1850], 20-K-1850-09(S). 20 ‘Wäre ich allein auf der Welt, – ich hätte den Brief ignorirt und wäre dem Impuls gefolgt,

der meiner Lebensbahn die Richtung nach Westen gegeben zu haben schien.’ G[ottfried]

Semper, letter to [Johann Carl Semper], 30 September and 1 October 1850, 20-K-1850-10-

01(S). Compare Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 30.



6

On Braun’s initiative, Semper could run his office from Falkener’s house,21 but

in spite of Braun’s proposal he did not choose Falkener as a professional partner

since he feared his ‘frostiness’ and ‘despotism’.22 Nevertheless, he assisted him in

the first London weeks and published an extract from Die vier Elemente der Baukunst

in the Museum of Classical Antiquities, a journal edited by Falkener, in July 1851.23

Eight months later a short, anonymous review of Friedrich Thiersch’s Ueber das

Erechtheum auf der Akropolis zu Athen and Carl Bötticher’s Der Poliastempel als

Wohnhaus des Königs Erechtheus nach der Annahme von Fr. Thiersch appeared in the

Museum of Classical Antiquities.24 Possibly, Semper was its author, as these books

inspired him to write an essay which would have been printed in the June issue of

that journal,25 were he to finish it in time.26

21 Emil Braun, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 22 September 1850, 20-K-1850-09-22; Edward

Falkener, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, [3 (?) October 1850], 20-K-1850-10-03; G[ottfried]

Semper, letter draft to [Johann] Carl (‘Karl’) [Semper], 1[3] October 1850, 20-K-1850-10-13(S). 22 [Gottfried Semper], fragmentary letter draft to [Emil Braun], [January 1851], 20-K-1851-

01(S). Compare E[mil] Braun, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 1 and 4 January 1851, 20-K-1851-

01-04:1. 23 [Gottfried Semper], fragmentary letter draft to [Emil Braun], [January 1851], 20-K-1851-

01(S); Gottfried Semper, ‘On the Study of Polychromy, and its Revival’, Museum of Classical

Antiquities 1, vol. 1, no. 3, July 1851, 228–246 (reprint in: Henrik Karge, ed., Gottfried Semper.

Gesammelte Schriften. Band 1. Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen und Streitschriften. Erster Teilband

(= Historia Scientiarum, edited by Bernhard Fabian and others), Hildesheim, Zurich and New

York: Olms-Weidmann, 2014, 371–389). 24 Anonymous writer, ‘Notices of New Publications. 1. – Friedrich Thiersch. Ueber das

Erechtheum auf der Akropolis zu Athen. Erste abhandlung. 4to. Munich, 1849. With five

plates. 2. – Carl Boetticher. Der Poliastempel als Wohnhaus des Koenigs Erechtheus nach der

annahme von Fr. Thiersch. With a plan. 8vo. Berlin, 1851’, Museum of Classical Antiquities,

vol. 2, no. 5, March 1852, 107. Compare E[dward] Falkener, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 26

February [18]52, 20-K-1852-02-26; Edward Falkener, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 28 February

[18]52, 20-K-1852-02-28:1; Edw[ard] Falkener, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, [1 March 1852],

20-K-1852-03-01. – Herrmann has erroneously referred these letters to a longer essay

promised by Semper. Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 106. 25 E[dward] Falkener, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 28 April [18]52, 20-K-1852-04-28; Ed[ward]

Falkener, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, [May (?) 1852], 20-K-1852-05. 26 This essay was not published in a later issue, either. The French manuscript of it is

preserved in Zurich. In December 1852 Semper sent a German adaptation of it to his

Dresden friend Johann Carl Bähr who proposed to publish it in the journal Deutsches

Kunstblatt. [Gottfried Semper], ‘Aucun reste d’antiquité…’ (manuscript), [1852], 20-Ms-99;

[Johann Carl] Bähr, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 8 and 9 January 1853, 20-K-1853-01-09.

Compare Wolfgang Herrmann, Gottfried Semper. Theoretischer Nachlass an der ETH Zürich.

Katalog und Kommentare (= Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur

an der Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule Zürich 15), Basel, Boston and Stuttgart:

Birkhäuser, 1981, 106.



7

Edwin Chadwick

On 29 September 1850 Braun introduced Semper to the English sanitary reformer

Edwin Chadwick, the initiator of the cemetery project, whom Wolfgang Herrmann

has called ‘member, but in reality leader of the Board of Health appointed under the

Public Health Act’.27 One day later Semper reported to his eldest brother:

I was told about a huge cemetery of 600 acres in expanse to be constructed

thirty miles off London, with a round chapel where funeral rites for a hundred

corpses per day shall be celebrated in three sessions, thus 30 to 35 corpses

simultaneously. […] One really seems to have the intention to assign to me, at

first, the preliminary studies, and then probably also the realization of these

ideas (to which, by the way, I have already admixed some of mine during the

conference). The only question is how far the authority and the reliability of

these gentlemen, who pretend to have found their man in me, reaches and

whether demurs and difficulties unknown to me do not preclude at least the

sudden or the quick realization of such expansive plans.28

Such demurs and difficulties existed indeed. Semper worked on the cemetery

project, especially on the design of a reception house, for several months. To his

disappointment, this design was rejected in June 1851, and the whole project was

suspended about half a year later.29

Chadwick and his wife Rachel supplied Semper with other connections.

Firstly, they introduced him to two members of the London Jewish community,

Moses Montefiore and Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, by whom he apparently

expected to be entrusted with architectural designs. Though he was even supported

27 G[ottfried] Semper, letter to [Johann Carl Semper], 30 September and 1 October 1850, 20-K-

1850-10-01(S); Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 32. Compare Christopher Hamlin, Public

Health and Social Justice in the Age of Chadwick. Britain, 1800–1854 (= Cambridge History of

Medicine, edited by Charles Rosenberg and Colin Jones), Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1998, 88. 28 ‘Man sprach mir von einem ungeheuren Gottesacker von 600 Äckern Flächenraum, der

dreissig Meilen von London errichtet werden solle, mit einer runden Kapelle, in welcher

täglich hundert Leichen in drei Abtheilungen, also stets 30 bis 35 Leichen zugleich,

eingeweihet werden sollen. […] Man scheint wirklich die Absicht zu haben, mir zuerst die

Vorarbeiten und sodann auch wohl die Ausführung dieser Ideen, (denen ich übrigens schon

Etwas von dem Meinigen während der Conferenz beigemischt habe,) zu übertragen. Fragt

sich nur, wie weit die Autorität und die Zuverlässigkeit dieser Herren, die in mir ihren

Mann gefunden zu haben vorgeben, reicht, und ob nicht mir unbekannte Bedenken und

Schwierigkeiten wenigstens der sofortigen oder baldigen Realisirung so ausgedehnter Pläne

entgegenstehen.’ G[ottfried] Semper, letter to [Johann Carl Semper], 30 September and 1

October 1850, 20-K-1850-10-01(S). 29 Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 34–42, 54–56.



8

by the Paris Jewish community, Montefiore and Rothschild did not commission

him.30

The second connection involved Joseph Paxton whose Crystal Palace design

for the Great Exhibition had been accepted in the summer of 1850. On 13 November

of that year, Semper asked Chadwick to recommend him to Paxton for the

decoration of the Crystal Palace.31 In late November Chadwick arranged a common

dinner,32 but before it took place, Semper learned that the decoration had already

been promised to Owen Jones.33 After the dinner he wrote to his eldest brother that

he would probably be employed by Paxton.34 About three months later, on 4 March

1851, Chadwick reported to him:

Last night Mr Paxton made enquiries as to whether you had yet obtained any

practise in London. […] He states to me that, if for the subsistence and during

the time you were waiting for opportunities in England or to get into English

views and tastes you would accept the place of an assistant to him, he could

provide a place for you at Chatsworth, but that he could not offer to pay you

more than at the rate of £200 per annum.35

Meanwhile, Semper had revived his eighteen-months-old intention to establish a

private school for architects.36 In January 1851 Braun had encouraged him to realize

it by involving Falkener and by employing the artist George Scharf Junior, the son

of a native German, as a ‘famulus’.37 In February Semper had busily drafted a school

programme including lessons for engineers, as well as architects. Thus he replied to

Chadwick on 8 March:

30 [Gottfried Semper], letter draft to [Edwin Chadwick], [13 November 1850], 20-K-1850-11-

13(S); Edwin Chadwick, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 26 November 1850, 20-K-1850-11-26;

G[ottfried] Semper, letter to [Johann Carl Semper], 30 November 1850, 20-K-1850-11-30(S):2.

– Semper had designed a synagogue for the Paris Jewish community in 1850. Heidrun

Laudel, ‘Synagoge in Paris’, in: Winfried Nerdinger and Werner Oechslin, eds, Gottfried

Semper 1803–1879, 270–272. 31 [Gottfried Semper], letter draft to [Edwin Chadwick], [13 November 1850], 20-K-1850-11-

13(S). 32 Edwin Chadwick, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 23 [November] 1850, 20-K-1850-11-23:2. 33 Edwin Chadwick, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 26 November 1850, 20-K-1850-11-26. 34 G[ottfried] Semper, letter to [Johann Carl Semper], 30 November 1850, 20-K-1850-11-

30(S):2. 35 Edwin Chadwick, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 4 March 1851, 20-K-1851-03-04. 36 Wilhelm Heine in New York had written to his former teacher Semper in the autumn of

1849: ‘In my opinion your idea to establish a school for architects could also be very

promising, there is none here at all.’ (‘Nach meiner Ansicht dürfte auch sehr glücklich Ihre

Idee sein, eine Architectenschule zu bilden, daran fehlt es hier gänzlich.’) W[ilhelm] Heine,

letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 24 September [18]49, 20-K-1849-09-24. 37 E[mil] Braun, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 1 and 4 January 1851, 20-K-1851-01-04:1; E[mil]

Braun, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 29 January 1851, 20-K-1851-01-29.



9

The offer which you have just made to me on Mr. Paxton’s behalf is as

generous as it is delicate, and my hesitation to engage in it immediately and

without reserve is only due to minor works and engagements that I have

made prior to the receipt of the offer in question and that I would have to

abandon in the case of my departure to Chatsworth being urgent. With respect

to this I would have wanted to come to terms with Mr. Paxton, likewise with

respect to a step I have just made by publishing in the newspapers of

Germany and Switzerland my intention to establish a school for architects in

London according to the one I have left in Dresden and the appeal to the

young architects to support this project through their participation. […]

Would I not be allowed, for instance, to have students in Chatsworth who

could at the same time be useful and help Mr. Paxton with his works?38

Chadwick answered one day later:

I do not think that an architectural class could soon be got together in

England, and I should imagine that for its success more knowledge of the

habits & wants of the class of architectural students would be required than

you would be likely to obtain readily. I have no doubt that it would be entirely

impracticable to carry on such a school at Chatsworth or in connexion with it,

and without having conversed with Mr Paxton I conceive that it would not

meet with his views.39

An advertisement of the ‘German school for architects and engineers in London’

was published by Semper’s friend Richard Wagner in the Eidgenössische Zeitung on

28 March 1851. It announced that ‘an adroit and adept engineer’ would be engaged

for the engineer’s part of the school.40 Did Semper mean Paxton by this engineer? In

38 ‘L’offre que vous venez de me faire au nom de Mr. Paxton est aussi généreuse que délicate,

et si j’ai hésité de m’y engager immédiatement et sans réserve, c’est uniquement par rapport

à des petits travaux et des engagemens pris antérieurement à la réception de l’offre en

question que je devrois abandonner dans le cas que mon départ pour Chatsworth seroit

urgent. C’est par rapport à cela que j’aurois voulu m’arranger avec Mr. Paxton, ainsi qu’à

une démarche que je venois de faire, en publiant dans les journaux de l’Allemagne et de la

Suisse mon intention de fonder à Londres un atelier d’architectes à l’instar de celui que je

viens de quitter à Dresde et l’invitation aux jeunes architectes de soutenir ce projet par leur

participation. […] Ne serait-il pas possible pour moi, par exemple, d’avoir des élèves à

Chatsworth qui pourroient en même temps être utiles et aider Mr. Paxton dans ses travaux?’

G[ottfried] Semper, letter draft to [Edwin] Chadwick, [8] March [18]51, 20-K-1851-03-08(S). 39 Edwin Chadwick, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 9 March 1851, 20-K-1851-03-09:1. 40 Semper even asserted that he had already engaged such an engineer: ‘He [Gottfried

Semper] will personally be responsible for the direction of the architectural exercises and a

part of the scientific lessons […] whereas he has engaged an adroit and adept engineer for

the subject of engineering.’ (‘Er wird persönlich die Leitung der architektonischen Uebungen

und einen Theil der wissenschaftlichen Vorträge übernehmen, […] während er für das



10

any case, he finally rejected Paxton’s offer and attempted to establish the school,41

but he did not succeed: in the following months he only mentioned a single

student,42 probably the American Charles Follen Junior, the son of a German

refugee.43 However, Paxton consigned ‘the design and execution of the Court for the

exhibition of Textile fabrics in the Crystal Palace’ in Sydenham to Semper on 4

February 1854.44

The third connection supplied by Edwin and Rachel Chadwick involved

Henry Cole who substantially contributed to the Great Exhibition and to the British

design education reform. In late November 1850 Edwin Chadwick informed Cole

about Semper’s intention to communicate his conception of antique polychromy to

the British public.45 At that time his wife Rachel had already begun to translate

Semper’s ‘paper on Polychrome decoration’ into English,46 and on 1 December she

wrote to him: ‘I send you the name and the address of a gentleman who much

wishes to make your acquaintance. Mr Cole is a leading member of the commission

which directs the works of the “crystal palace”, and he says that he thinks the

Society of Arts might be got to publish your view of the restored acropolis and your

paper on Polychromie.’47 Four days later Semper met Cole,48 and thus began his

most important professional relation of the London years.

Ingenieurfach sich einen geschickten und erfahrenen Ingenieur beigesellt hat.’) Gottfried

Semper, ‘Deutsches Atelier für Architekten und Ingenieurs in London’ (with an addition by

Richard Wagner), Eidgenössische Zeitung 7, no. 87, 28 March 1851, 347–348. 41 Julie Becher regretted in June 1851 that Semper had ‘not accepted’ Paxton’s offer whereas

Semper asserted in July: ‘Mr Paxton to whom Mrs Chadwick, at Ms Bonham Carter’s instance I

think, had addressed a letter and to whom I also wrote later by placing myself at his disposal

with heart and soul did not answer me.’ (‘Herr Paxton, an den sich Missis Chadwick, auf

Veranlassung der Fräulein Bonham Carter, glaube ich, brieflich gewendet hatte, dem ich

später selbst schrieb, indem ich mich Ihm mit Leib und Seele zur Disposition stellte, liess

mich ohne Antwort.’) Julie Becher, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 23 June [18]51, 20-K-1851-06-

23; [Gottfried Semper], fragmentary letter draft to [Julie] Becher, [July 1851], 20-K-1851-07(S). 42 [Gottfried Semper], letter to [Johann Carl Semper], 5 May 1851, 20-K-1851-05-05(S):1. 43 Two letter drafts prove that Semper met Charles Follen in 1851 and called him a ‘friend

and student’ probably in the same year. Possibly, he owed this student to Rachel Chadwick,

for she had written to him in early 1851: ‘A young acquaintance of mine is very desirous to

have lessons in architectural drawing, and hearing of your fame in architecture he has much

wished to receive instruction from you. He however is not very wealthy and therefore

cannot offer a high remuneration to you.’ Rachel Chadwick, letter to [Gottfried] Semper,

[February or March 1851], 20-K-1851:5; [Gottfried Semper], fragmentary letter draft to

[Edward] Falkener, [1851 (?)], 20-K-1851(S):1; G[ottfried] S[emper], letter draft to [Charles]

Follen, [1851], 20-K-1851(S):2. 44 G[eorge] Grove, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 4 February 1854, 20-K-1854-02-04. 45 Rachel Chadwick, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 1 December [1850], 20-K-1850-12-01. 46 Edwin Chadwick, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 26 November 1850, 20-K-1850-11-26. 47 Rachel Chadwick, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 1 December [1850], 20-K-1850-12-01. – Cole

became ‘chairman of the council of the Society of Arts’ around that time. Elizabeth Bonython

and Anthony Burton, The Great Exhibitor. The Life and Work of Henry Cole, London: V&A

Publications, 2003, 103. 48 R[achel] Chadwick, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, [2 December 1850], 20-K-1850-12-02:4.

Compare Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 45.



11

But what did Rachel Chadwick mean by Semper’s ‘view of the restored

acropolis’ and ‘paper on Polychromie’? By the ‘view’ she possibly meant a coloured

drawing produced around 1832 and now preserved in Zurich,49 whereas by the

‘paper’ she certainly meant a part of the draft of Die vier Elemente der Baukunst.50

Semper had drafted this book in Paris for the English public since he had hoped to

be able to animate and influence the discussion on polychromy in England.51 There

is no evidence that the Society of Arts presided by Prince Albert published Semper’s

view or paper.52 However, Cole himself published an extract of the mentioned

extract from Die vier Elemente der Baukunst, namely of the one printed by Falkener, in

the Journal of Design and Manufactures in December 1851.53

The fact that Semper even contributed an essay ‘On the Origin of Polychromy

in Architecture’ to Owen Jones’ Apology for the Colouring of the Greek Court in the

Crystal Palace in 1854 is strange,54 for he apparently was not particularly close to

Jones. The latter had explored Egyptian, Turkish and Spanish architecture with

Semper’s friend Jules Goury in the early 1830s. In 1851 Semper had implicitly

assigned the responsibility for the disappearance of Goury’s polychrome drawings

to ‘Oven Jones’ – nomen est omen!55

49 Gottfried (‘Goffredo’) Semper, reconstruction drawing of the Athenian Acropolis, [1832

(?)], 20-0215-2. 50 [Gottfried Semper], ‘Die vier Elemente der Baukunst’ (manuscript), [1850], 20-Ms-78.

Compare Herrmann, Gottfried Semper. Theoretischer Nachlass, 95–96. 51 Semper even considered to entitle the book Über Polychromie und ihren Ursprung. He finally

published it in Germany. Gottfried Semper, letter to [Eduard] Vieweg, 19 January 1851,

quoted in: Wolfgang Herrmann, ‘Semper und Eduard Vieweg’, in: Börsch-Supan and others,

Gottfried Semper und die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, 199–237, here 228–230; Gottfried Semper,

Die vier Elemente der Baukunst. Ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Baukunde, Brunswick: Friedrich

Vieweg und Sohn, 1851 (reprint in: Karge, ed., Gottfried Semper. Band 1. Erster Teilband, 259–

368). 52 The first issue of the Journal of the Society of Arts, and of the Institutions in Union appeared on

26 November 1852, about two years after Rachel Chadwick’s letter. – Prince Albert had

become president of the Society of Arts in 1843. Bonython and Burton, The Great Exhibitor, 99. 53 Gottfried Semper (with additions by [Henry Cole]), ‘On the Study of Polychromy’, Journal

of Design and Manufactures 3, vol. 6, no. 34, December 1851, 112–113 (reprint in: Karge, ed.,

Gottfried Semper. Band 1. Erster Teilband, 390–391). 54 [Gottfried] Semper, ‘On the Origin of Polychromy in Architecture’, in: Owen Jones, An

Apology for the Colouring of the Greek Court in the Crystal Palace. With Arguments by G. H. Lewes

and W. Watkiss Lloyd, An Extract from the Report of the Committee Appointed to Examine the Elgin

Marbles in 1836, from the Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and A Fragment

on the Origin of Polychromy, by Professor Semper, London: Crystal Palace Library and Bradbury

and Evans, 1854, 47–56 (reprint in: Henrik Karge, ed., Gottfried Semper. Gesammelte Schriften.

Band 1. Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen und Streitschriften. Zweiter Teilband (= Historia

Scientiarum, edited by Bernhard Fabian and others), Hildesheim, Zurich and New York: Olms-

Weidmann, 2014, 551–560). 55 Gottfried Semper, Die vier Elemente der Baukunst, 3–4 (fn. *).



12

Probably also through Edwin or Rachel Chadwick, Semper was connected

with Joanna Maria Bonham Carter and her children before June 1851.56 Some

months later this family introduced him to William Bingham Baring who asked him

to design an extension of ‘The Grange’ in Hampshire.57 However, Charles Robert

Cockerell extended this mansion after his own design in 1852.58 Possibly as a sort of

compensation, he consulted Semper about the arrangement of a ‘music room’ in

1853.59

Semper was invited for several trips to the countryside by Joanna Maria

Bonham Carter and her eldest daughter, Joanna Hilary, whom he sometimes taught

perspective.60 Joanna Hilary probably acquainted him with Julie Becher, a German

lady living in England for unknown reasons.61 When he again considered to

emigrate to North America in the summer of 1851, Julie Becher recommended him

to her brother Albrecht who worked as an architect in New York. In her

recommendation letter she wrote that Semper had begged her for a copy of

Albrecht’s interesting ‘notes on American architecture’.62 Did Semper mean these

notes when he integrated a ‘German technician’s lively description of the state of

civil architecture in the United States’ into his book Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst

a few months later?63

56 Compare J[oanna] Hilary Bonham Carter, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 24 May [1851], 20-

K-1851-05-24:1; [Gottfried Semper], fragmentary letter draft to [Julie] Becher, [July 1851], 20-

K-1851-07(S). 57 Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 61; Heidrun Laudel, ‘Erweiterung des Landsitzes The

Grange’, in: Winfried Nerdinger and Werner Oechslin, eds, Gottfried Semper 1803–1879, 280–

281. 58 David Watkin, The Life and Work of C. R. Cockerell (= Studies in Architecture, edited by Anthony

Blunt, John Harris and Howard Hibbard 14), London: A. Zwemmer, 1974, 253. 59 C[harles] R[obert] Cockerell, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 11 March 1853, 20-K-1853-03-11. 60 J[oanna] Hilary Bonham Carter, letter to [Gottfried Semper], [1851], 20-K-1851:4; J[oanna]

Hilary Bonham Carter, letter to [Gottfried Semper], [August 1851], 20-K-1851-08:1; J[oanna]

M[aria] Bonham Carter, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 14 March [1852], 20-K-1852-03-14. –

Semper probably taught Joanna Maria Bonham Carter’s second and third eldest daughters

Frances Maria and Alice perspective, too. 61 Compare J[oanna] Hilary Bonham Carter, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 24 May [1851], 20-

K-1851-05-24:1; Julie Becher, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 1 June [18]51, 20-K-1851-06-01. –

One of Julie Becher’s brothers, August, had belonged to the democratic German

‘Rumpfparlament’ and ‘Reichsregentschaft’ in 1849 and was imprisoned because of his

political activities in 1851 and 1852. Compare Julie Becher, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 29

July [18]51, 20-K-1851-07-29; Julie Becher, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 5 October [1851], 20-K-

1851-10-05; J[oanna] Hilary Bonham Carter, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 11 February [1852],

20-K-1852-02-11. 62 Julie [Becher], letter to Albrecht Becher, 29 July [18]51, 20-K(DD)-1851-07-29. 63 Gottfried Semper, Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst. Vorschläge zur Anregung nationalen

Kunstgefühles. Bei dem Schlusse der Londoner Industrie-Ausstellung. London, den 11. October 1851,



13

Henry Cole

In the early spring of 1851 Henry Cole achieved Semper’s employment for the

arrangement of four departments of the Great Exhibition.64 If Elizabeth Bonython’s

and Anthony Burton’s assumption is right, Cole, too, remarked in May of that year

in the Journal of Design and Manufactures: ‘The show from Canada is nearly in order,

having been arranged by Mr. Semper, the architect of the Dresden Theatre, who is

called the “Barry” of Germany.’65 When Cole published the mentioned extract of an

extract from Die vier Elemente der Baukunst he even praised Semper as a potential art

teacher: ‘Mr. Semper it was who so skilfully arranged the Canadian Court in the

Great Exhibition. His knowledge both of architecture, and generally of decoration, is

profound, and his taste excellent. It is men of his acquirements from whom our

manufacturers would be likely to obtain great help.’66 On 29 January 1852 Semper

dared to ask Cole whether he could obtain a job at the London School of Design

being reformed at that time.67 In spring Cole began to prepare Semper for an

employment by asking him to visit Herbert Minton’s china factory and write a

catalogue of metal art.68 On 1 September Semper was employed ‘to afford

instruction in the principles and practice of Ornamental Art applied to Metal

Manufactures’.69 Three paragraphs of his contract obliged him to give lectures and

write reports:

You will be required to give demonstrations to your Class and occasional

public lectures on the uses to be made of the objects in the Museum, the

Brunswick: Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn, 1852, 21–24 (reprint in: Karge, ed., Gottfried Semper.

Band 1. Zweiter Teilband, 435–512, here 457–460). 64 Semper’s estate in the gta archives of the ETH Zurich contains one single letter draft

proving this fact. The four departments were the Canadian, the Danish, the Swedish and the

Turkish one. Gottfried Semper, letter draft to [Henry Cole], [October 1854], 20-K-1854-10(S).

Compare Heidrun Laudel, ‘Ausstattungen auf der Weltausstellung 1851 im Crystal Palace’,

in: Winfried Nerdinger and Werner Oechslin, eds, Gottfried Semper 1803–1879, 275–278. 65 [Henry Cole], ‘The Aspect of the Exhibition at the Queen’s Visit, on the 15th April’, Journal

of Design and Manufactures 3, vol. 5, no. 27, May 1851, 57–60, here 59. – Bonython and Burton

have remarked: ‘We can assume that Cole wrote most of the unsigned articles and

paragraphs in the Journal of design.’ Bonython and Burton, The Great Exhibitor, 114. Compare

Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 62 (fn. 220). 66 [Henry Cole], addition to: Gottfried Semper, ‘On the Study of Polychromy’, Journal of

Design and Manufacture 3, vol. 6, no. 34, December 1851, 112–113, here 113. Compare

Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 62. 67 Gottfried Semper, letter to Henry Cole, 29 January 1852, quoted in: Herrmann, Gottfried

Semper im Exil, 126–127. 68 Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 64–66. Compare Gottfried Semper, letter to [Henry

Cole], 9 April 1852; G[ottfried] Semper, letter to [Henry Cole], 10 June [18]52, quoted in:

Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 128–131; Peter Noever, ed., Gottfried Semper. The Ideal

Museum. Practical Art in Metals and Hard Materials (= MAK Studies 8), Vienna: Schlebrügge,

2007. 69 G[ottfried] Semper, letter to Bertha [Semper], [4 September 1852], 20-K-1852-09-04(S);

W[alter] R[uding] Deverell, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 11 September 1852, 20-K-1852-09-11.



14

collection of casts, books, prints, drawings &c. in the Library. […] You will

have to visit and report on Collections when required, and upon the state of

the Museum, Collection of Casts, and Library of the Department so far as

respects Metal Manufactures, and to inform the Superintendents of any

examples which it may appear desirable that the Museum should possess. […]

You will report annually on the progress of your Class before the 31st of

December in each year.70

Many of Semper’s writings of the London years can be traced back to these

requirements. In mid September Bertha Semper and her six children relocated from

the continent to London.71

Thomas Leverton Donaldson

In December 1838, on a trip to London, Semper had met Thomas Leverton

Donaldson, one of the founders and the secretaries of the Royal Institute of British

Architects (RIBA).72 In October 1850, shortly after he had settled in London, he

visited Donaldson again who then was the secretary for foreign correspondence of

the RIBA and soon received ‘the Royal Gold Medal for the year 1850’ for his

manifold merits.73 In the same month the secretaries of the RIBA invited Semper,

certainly on Donaldson’s initiative, ‘to the Ordinary Meetings of the ensuing Session

1850–51’ starting on 4 November. Moreover, they explained to him: ‘We are directed

by the Council […] to express the hope that the Members may be frequently favored

with your Company. They would also be much gratified by any information that

you might be able occasionally to communicate on those subjects which occupy the

70 W[alter] R[uding] Deverell, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 11 September 1852, § 3–4, § 6, 20-

K-1852-09-11. 71 The day of Bertha Semper’s and her children’s arrival cannot be ascertained. Probably, it

was 15 September 1852. Compare Bertha [Semper], letter to Gottfried Semper, 27 [August

1852], 20-K-1852-08-27; G[ottfried] Semper, letter to Bertha [Semper], [4 September 1852], 20-

K-1852-09-04(S). 72 Semper arrived in London on 14 December 1838 and remained there for about a week. His

travel was due to the design and the construction of the Dresden theatre. G[ottfried] Semper,

letter to Bertha Semper, 18 December 1838, 20-K-1838-12-18(S); G[ottfried] Semper, letter to

[Otto] v[on] Wolframsdorf, 2 January 1839, 20-K-1839-01-02(S); G[ottfried] Semper, letter to

[Johann] Carl (‘Karl’) [Semper], 3 April 1839, 20-K-1839-04-03(S); [Gottfried Semper],

fragmentary letter draft to [Thomas Leverton] Donaldson, [November 1848], 20-K-1848-

11(S). 73 C[harles] C[harnock] Nelson and J[oseph] J[ohn] Scoles, Royal Institute of British Architects,

Incorporated 7th William IV. Session 1850–51. Ordinary General Meeting, 10 March 1851 (17

March 1851), [London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1851], 2. – Donaldson would not

have invited Semper with a single sentence for ‘a game of chess’ on 1 November 1850 if he

had not already met him in October. T[homas] L[everton] Donaldson, letter to [Gottfried

Semper], 1 November [1850], 20-K-1850-11-01.



15

attention of this Institute.’74 Semper answered: ‘Gentlemen, I […] beg to assure you

that I shall feel it an honor to put myself in communication with so distinguished a

body, whenever I can be of service.’75 On 2 December, when Matthew Digby Wyatt

presented his Observations on Polychromatic Decoration in Italy, from the 12th to the 16th

Century, the audience learned that Semper had donated his book Das Königliche

Hoftheater zu Dresden to the RIBA – obviously with the intention of proving his

architectural competence.76 And on 13 January 1851 it heard that Semper had

donated another book to the RIBA: Vorläufige Bemerkungen über bemalte Architectur

und Plastik bei den Alten which had strongly influenced the polychromy debate in

1834.77

On 12 January 1852, when Donaldson reviewed Jakob Ignaz Hittorff’s book

Restitution du temple d’Empédocle à Sélinonte, ou L’architecture polychrôme chez les Grecs,

Semper attended a meeting of the RIBA for the first verifiable time.78 He had

prepared himself by three means for this evening. Firstly, he had donated his

74 Ch[arle]s C[harnock] Nelson and J[oseph] J[ohn] Scoles, letter to [Gottfried Semper],

October 1850, 20-DOK-1850:15. Compare C[harles] C[harnock] Nelson and J[oseph] J[ohn]

Scoles, Royal Institute of British Architects, Incorporated 7th William IV. Session 1850–51. Opening

General Meeting, 4 November 1850 (11 November 1850), [London: Royal Institute of British

Architects, 1850]. 75 [Gottfried Semper], letter draft to [Charles Charnock Nelson and Joseph John Scoles],

[November 1850], 20-K-1850-11(S):1. 76 C[harles] C[harnock] Nelson and J[oseph] J[ohn] Scoles, Royal Institute of British Architects,

Incorporated 7th William IV. Session 1850–51. Ordinary General Meeting, 2 December 1850 (9

December 1850), [London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1850], 2. – In the discussion

on Wyatt’s lecture, Charles Fowler remarked ‘that he had seen, some years ago, an attempt

made by some Italian artists at Hamburgh, to revive the art of sgraffito decoration, which

appeared to be very ingenious, and not at all difficult, and which might, he thought, prove

suitable to the climate of England’. Was he not wrong? Had he not seen the sgraffiti designed

by Semper for a pharmacy? Probably, Semper did not hear Fowler’s remark since he felt bad

on that day. M[atthew] Digby Wyatt and anonymous writer, Observations on Polychromatic

Decoration in Italy, from the 12th to the 16th Century. By M. Digby Wyatt, Associate. Made at the

Ordinary General Meeting of the Royal Institute of British Architects, December 2nd, 1850,

[London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1850], 8. Compare R[achel] Chadwick, letter to

[Gottfried] Semper, [2 December 1850], 20-K-1850-12-02:4. 77 C[harles] C[harnock] Nelson and J[oseph] J[ohn] Scoles, Royal Institute of British Architects,

Incorporated 7th William IV. Session 1850–51. Ordinary General Meeting, 13 January 1851 (20

January 1851), [London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1851], 2. 78 T[homas] L[everton] Donaldson, On Polychromatic Embellishments in Greek Architecture,

Being an Explanation of the System, as Illustrated in the Recent Work on the Polychromy of the

Ancients, by M. Hittorff, Honorary and Corresponding Member, Given by T. L. Donaldson,

Honorary Secretary for Foreign Correspondence, at the Ordinary General Meeting of the Royal

Institute of British Architects, January 12, 1852, [London: Royal Institute of British Architects,

1852], 2. Compare J[akob] J[gnaz] Hittorff, Restitution du temple d’Empédocle à Sélinonte, ou

L’architecture polychrôme chez les Grecs, Paris: Firmin Didot Frères 1851.



16

recently published book Die vier Elemente der Baukunst to the RIBA.79 Secondly, he

had donated five coloured lithographs of his unfinished book Die Anwendung der

Farben in der Architectur und Plastik to it.80 Thirdly, he had pinned several own

drawings, among them ‘restorations of a part of the Parthenon, a building at

Pompeii, an Etruscan tomb, and a representation of the remains of colour visible on

the Temple of Theseus’, onto the walls of the meeting room.81 Donaldson affirmed

that the subject of polychromy had been ‘forcibly brought before the attention of

learned Europe’ by Semper’s lithographs,82 and he tried to persuade the audience of

Hittorff’s and Semper’s conceptions of antique polychromy, but was hardly

successful. In the intensive discussion extending over the next two meetings, he and

Semper alone confronted all those who believed in partial polychromy only.83

In his lecture, Donaldson alluded to Francis Cranmer Penrose’s recently

published book An Investigation of the Principles of Athenian Architecture, too.84 On 13

79 C[harles] C[harnock] Nelson and J[oseph] J[ohn] Scoles, Royal Institute of British Architects,

Incorporated 7th William IV. Session 1851–52. Ordinary General Meeting, 12 January 1852 (19

January 1852), [London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1852], 2. 80 ‘Five coloured Lithographs, viz. – Restoration of a part of the Parthenon; two of Details of

the Temple of Theseus; an Etruscan Tomb, and Sarcophagi found at Girgenti, from a work

by Herr Semper.’ C[harles] C[harnock] Nelson and J[oseph] J[ohn] Scoles, Royal Institute of

British Architects, Incorporated 7th William IV. Session 1851–52. Ordinary General Meeting, 12

January 1852 (19 January 1852), [London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1852], 3.

Compare G[ottfried] Semper, Die Anwendung der Farben in der Architectur und Plastik. In einer

Sammlung von Beispielen aus den Zeiten des Alterthums und des Mittelalters. Erstes Heft. Dorisch-

Griechische Kunst, Dresden: Auf Kosten des Herausgebers, 1836 (reprint in: Karge, ed.,

Gottfried Semper. Band 1. Erster Teilband, 127–139). 81 T[homas] L[everton] Donaldson, On Polychromatic Embellishments in Greek Architecture, 2.

Compare C[harles] C[harnock] Nelson and J[oseph] J[ohn] Scoles, Royal Institute of British

Architects, Incorporated 7th William IV. Session 1851–52. Ordinary General Meeting, 26 January

1852 (2 February 1852), [London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1852], 1–2; C[harles]

C[harnock] Nelson und J[oseph] J[ohn] Scoles, Royal Institute of British Architects, Incorporated

7th William IV. Session 1851–52. Ordinary General Meeting, 9 February 1852 (16 February 1852),

[London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1852], 2. 82 T[homas] L[everton] Donaldson, On Polychromatic Embellishments in Greek Architecture, 2. 83 Anonymous writer, On Polychromatic Embellishments in Greek Architecture, Being a

Discussion on the Explanation given by T. L. Donaldson, Honorary Secretary for Foreign

Correspondence, at the Meeting of January 12, 1852, Held at the Ordinary General Meeting of the

Royal Institute of British Architects, January 26, 1852, [London: Royal Institute of British

Architects, 1852]; anonymous writer, On Polychromatic Embellishments in Greek Architecture,

Being a Discussion in continuation of that which took place at the previous Meeting, Held at the

Ordinary General Meeting of the Royal Institute of British Architects, February 9, 1852, [London:

Royal Institute of British Architects, 1852]. 84 Anonymous writer, On Polychromatic Embellishments in Greek Architecture, 1. Compare

Francis Cranmer Penrose, An Investigation of the Principles of Athenian Architecture or The

Results of a Recent Survey Conducted Chiefly with Reference to the Optical Refinements Exhibited in

the Construction of the Ancient Buildings at Athens (= Publications of the Society of Dilettanti 5),



17

March 1852 an anonymous review of this book appeared in the London art and

science journal Athenæum.85 Three letters preserved in Zurich prove that in February

Henry Cole had asked an editor of the Athenæum to print a ‘paper’ by Semper.86 Was

his German protégé the reviewer? There is not enough evidence to answer this

question in the affirmative. Semper could have written another review printed one

week later, the one of the programme of a Cyclopædia of Architecture,87 and even the

possibility that his ‘paper’ was not published at all cannot be excluded.88

Semper attended the meetings of the RIBA for one more verifiable time only:

on 7 February 1853, when Penrose read David Ramsay Hay’s paper Attempt to

Develope the Principle which Governs the Proportions and Curves of the Parthenon of

Athens.89 This reading inspired him to write the study Ueber die bleiernen

Schleudergeschosse der Alten.90 Around December of that year, he told the journalist

Julius Faucher about it. Since he afterwards feared that its results could be

published in Germany by Faucher he let the Saxon mathematician Benjamin

London: Longman and John Murray, 1851. – The donation of this book had been announced

on 12 January 1852. C[harles] C[harnock] Nelson and J[oseph] J[ohn] Scoles, Royal Institute of

British Architects, Incorporated 7th William IV. Session 1851–52. Ordinary General Meeting, 12

January 1852 (19 January 1852), [London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1852], 2. 85 Anonymous writer, ‘Fine Arts. An Investigation of the Principles of Athenian Architecture,

&c. By Francis Cranmer Penrose. Published by the Dilettanti Society’, Athenæum. Journal of

English and Foreign Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts 25, no. 1272, 13 March 1852, 304–305. 86 Henry Cole, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 4 February [1852], 20-K-1852-02-04:1; Henry Cole,

letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 10 February 1852, 20-K-1852-02-10; Henry Cole, letter to

G[ottfried] Semper, 24 February 1852, 20-K-1852-02-24. – Bonython and Burton have attested

Cole ‘a lifelong connection’ with the Athenæum. Bonython and Burton, The Great Exhibitor, 68. 87 Anonymous writer, ‘Fine Arts. Architectural Publication Society. Part III. of Volume for

1850–51’, Athenæum. Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts 25, no.

1273, 20 March 1852, 330. 88 Herrmann has asserted that the Athenæum never printed ‘any article by Semper’, but he

has only searched for an extract from Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst or an essay on the

Erechtheum. Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 64 (fn. 226). 89 D[avid] R[amsay] Hay and anonymous writer, An Attempt to Develope the Principle which

Governs the Proportions and Curves of the Parthenon of Athens; with a Few Observations on the

Application of Æsthetic Science to Architecture Generally. By D. R. Hay, Esq. F.R.S.E. Read at the

Ordinary General Meeting of the Royal Institute of British Architects, February 7, 1853, [London:

Royal Institute of British Architects, 1853]. Compare C[harles] C[harnock] Nelson and

J[oseph] J[ohn] Scoles, Royal Institute of British Architects, Incorporated 7th William IV. Session

1852–53. Ordinary General Meeting, 7 February 1853 (14 February 1853), [London: Royal

Institute of British Architects, 1853], 2. 90 Gottfried Semper, Ueber die bleiernen Schleudergeschosse der Alten und über zweckmässige

Gestaltung der Wurfkörper im Allgemeinen. Ein Versuch die dynamische Entstehung gewisser

Formen in der Natur und in der Kunst nachzuweisen. Mit einem Anhange über Bewegung im

widerstehenden Mittel, Frankfurt on Main: Verlag für Kunst und Wissenschaft, 1859, 1–2, 6

(reprint in: Karge, ed., Gottfried Semper. Band 1. Zweiter Teilband, 660–778, here 663–664, 668).

Compare Herrmann, Gottfried Semper. Theoretischer Nachlass, 116.



18

Witzschel review them in the Annalen der Physik und Chemie in September 1854.91

The whole study was finally printed five years later.

Semper hardly achieved any professional advantage by the RIBA. He alleged

that all English architects tried to exclude him from the profitable commissions.92

However, in late 1856 he confessed that he had received ‘multiple offers’ by Charles

Robert Cockerell, Thomas Leverton Donaldson and Edward Falkener shortly before

his departure from London.93

Rudolph Schramm

Soon after his arrival in London, Semper was introduced to some members of the

German community – or rather the group of German speaking émigrés and refugees

– by Emil Braun. On 29 September 1850 he met, besides Edwin Chadwick, Eduard

vom Hof whom he called ‘a kind of homme d’affaires’,94 and in December he brought

several drawings of a Lycian frieze, probably of the frieze of the Nereid Monument

in Xanthos, to the Hungarian Franz Pulszky who was to send them to the publishers

Williams and Norgate. On Braun’s demand, Semper had compared these drawings

produced by an unknown person with the original frieze exhibited in the British

Museum.95 Possibly through Pulszky, he was connected with the journalist Rudolph

Schramm who helped him draft and publish the advertisement of his intended

school for architects and engineers in February and March 1851.96 Schramm, whose

brother Conrad then belonged to Karl Marx’s circle, introduced Semper to two other

journalists, Lothar Bucher and Julius Faucher, the London correspondents of the

91 G[ottfried] Semper, letter draft to [Friedrich Krause], 6 May 1854, 20-K-1854-05-06(S);

Benjamin Witzschel, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 9 July 1854, 20-K-1854-07-09; B[enjamin]

Witzschel, ‘Von der Form der Körper, die mit geringster Resistenz in widerstehenden

Mitteln sich bewegen’, Annalen der Physik und Chemie. Herausgegeben zu Berlin von J. C.

Poggendorff 31, vol. 93, no. 10, [18 September] 1854, 297–305. 92 [Gottfried Semper], fragmentary letter draft to [Emil Braun], [January 1851], 20-K-1851-

01(S); [Gottfried Semper], fragmentary letter to Bertha [Semper], [August 1852], 20-K-1852-

08(S). 93 Georg Herwegh, ‘Gottfried Semper. Aufzeichnungen von Georg Herwegh nach

Erzählungen von G. S.’ (manuscript, copy by Manfred Semper), [November or December

1856], 20, without specific number. 94 G[ottfried] Semper, letter to [Johann Carl Semper], 30 September and 1 October 1850, 20-K-

1850-10-01(S). 95 Emil Braun, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 23 November 1850, 20-K-1850-11-23:1; Gottfried

Semper, letter draft to Franz (‘Franzis’) Pulszky, [4 December 1850], 20-K-1850-12-04(S). 96 Rudolph Schramm, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 25 February [1851], 20-K-1851-02-25;

G[ottfried] Semper, letter draft to [Rudolf Schramm], 2[5] February 1851, 20-K-1851-02-

25(S):2; Rudolph Schramm, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 26 February [1851], 20-K-1851-02-

26:1; Rudolph Schramm, letter to [Gottfried Semper], [February 1851], 20-K-1851-02:2.



19

Berlin National-Zeitung and the Kölnische Zeitung.97 When he invited him to ‘a

German tea party’ arranged by Arnold Ruge on 4 March he remarked: ‘Ronge and

wife, Zimmermann and wife, Struve and wife, Oppenheim, Julius, Goldsticker, Fersman,

Bucher, Kinckel, Dr Bauer, briefly, almost all German democrats, refugees or not, have

accepted.’98 Schramm probably meant the theologian Johannes Ronge, the lawyers

Eduard Zimmermann, Gustav Struve and Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim, the

journalist Gustav Julius, the philologist Theodor Goldstücker, the chemist Friedrich

Versmann, Lothar Bucher, the theologian (and later art historian) Gottfried Kinkel

and the physician Louis Bauer by these men. He admitted, however: ‘I do not expect

much fun there, only some boring speeches […].’99

The letters preserved in Zurich do not reveal whether Semper joined Ruge’s

‘tea party’,100 and they hardly disclose his connections with the German

community.101 The fact that Semper was, besides Lothar Bucher, Gottfried Kinkel

and Oscar Reichenbach, elected to a refugees’ committee in August 1851 can be

learned from one of Marx’s letters to Friedrich Engels only.102 Obviously, Semper

left the committee after a short time, for he assumed that it was dissolved when he

was supposed to transfer some money from Dresden to it in the spring of 1852.

Since Eduard Meyen convinced him of the opposite, he consigned the money to

Oscar Reichenbach who delivered it to an unknown treasurer – who finally

97 Compare Rudolph Schramm, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 25 February [1851], 20-K-1851-

02-25. 98 ‘Ronge u. Frau, Zimmermann u. Frau, Struve u. Frau, Oppenheim, Julius, Goldsticker, Fersman,

Bucher, Kinckel, Dr. Bauer, kurz fast Alle deutsche Demokraten, Flüchtlinge oder nicht, haben

zugesagt.’ Rudolph Schramm, letter to [Gottfried Semper], [February 1851], 20-K-1851-02:2. 99 ‘Ich verspreche mir nicht viel Spass dort, nur einige langweilige Reden […].’ Rudolph

Schramm, letter to [Gottfried Semper], [February 1851], 20-K-1851-02:2. 100 One letter suggests that Semper joined the party. On 11 April 1851 Heinrich Bernhard

Oppenheim, one of the party guests, wrote to him: ‘Dear friend! Would it perhaps not cause

you any trouble to send me a single Exhibition ticket for 2 or 3 persons?’ (‘Lieber Freund!

Würde es Sie vielleicht keine Mühe kosten, mir für 2–3 Personen eine 1xige Eintrittskarte in

d. Exhibition zu schicken?’) H[einri]ch B[ern]h[ar]d Opp[en]h[ei]m, letter to [Gottfried

Semper], 11 April [18]51, 20-K-1851-04-11:3. 101 Even Ashton’s and Lattek’s books on German émigrés and refugees in London do not

disclose Semper’s connections with this community. Rosemary Ashton, Little Germany. Exile

and Asylum in Victorian England, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986;

Christine Lattek, Revolutionary Refugees. German socialism in Britain, 1840–1860 (= Routledge

studies in modern British history 2), London and New York: Routledge, 2006. 102 K[arl] M[arx], letter to [Friedrich] Engels, 31 August 1851, quoted in: Institut für

Marxismus-Leninismus, ed., Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA). Dritte

Abteilung. Band 4. Briefwechsel Januar bis Dezember 1851, Berlin: Dietz, 1984, 195–198, here 195–

196. Compare Heinz Quitzsch, Die ästhetischen Anschauungen Gottfried Sempers (= Studien zur

Architektur- und Kunstwissenschaft 1), Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1962, 11–12.



20

defrauded it.103 Yet, Semper joined the ‘German Society of Welfare and Unity’ in the

summer of 1853.104

On 26 March 1851 Schramm explained to Semper:

A German-English paper representing the interests of the German industry on

the occasion of the Exhibition is realized here. I am occupied with the

composition of the prospectus and will probably assume the editor’s job. In

this case I hope that you will not refuse me your cooperation. […] Should you

not want to comment also on the style, the construction and arrangement of

the Crystal Palace itself?105

Schramm meant by this ‘paper’ the German supplement of the Illustrated London

News. Around the same time Friedrich Wetzler, one of Eduard vom Hof’s friends,

asked Otto Wigand Junior if Semper could regularly report on the Great Exhibition

in a journal supposed to be established in Leipzig by Wigand’s father.106 Otto

Wigand Senior rejected such an engagement ‘for several reasons’, but on 10 April he

begged Semper to write for the supplement of Johann Jacob Weber’s Illustrirte

Zeitung.107 Although Semper promised to contribute to both supplements, no article

published in the Beilage zur Illustrirten Zeitung can be ascribed to him.108 However,

he reviewed the Great Exhibition in the German supplement of the Illustrated London

103 [Friedrich] Krause, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 25 February 1852, 20-K-1852-02-25; O[scar]

Reichenbach, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 16 April [18]52, 20-K-1852-04-16; E[duard] Meyen,

letter to [Gottfried Semper], 7 June [18]52, 20-K-1852-06-07; O[scar] Reichenbach, letter to

[Gottfried Semper] (with addition by G[ottfried] S[emper]), [1852], 20-K-1852:4. 104 H[einrich] Schirges, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, 25 July [18]53, 20-K-1853-07-25. 105 ‘Es kommt ein Deutsch-Englisches, die Interessen der Deutschen Industrie bei

Gelegenheit der Ausstellung vertretendes Blatt hier zu Stande. Ich bin mit Ausarbeitung des

Prospectus beschäftigt u. werde wahrscheinlich die Redaktion übernehmen. In diesem Falle

hoffe ich, dass Sie mir Ihre Mitwirkung nicht versagen werden. […] Sollten Sie nicht auch

über den Baustyl, die Construction u. Einrichtung des Crystal Palaces selbst Sich äussern

wollen?’ Rudolph Schramm, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 26 March 1851, 20-K-1851-03-26. 106 Compare Friedr[ich] Wetzler, letter draft to Otto Wigand Senior, 12 April 1851, 20-K(DD)-

1851-04-12. – In January 1851 Braun had already considered to propose ‘the edition of a

critical review of the Great Exhibition’ to Eduard Vieweg supposing that he and Semper

would be the common reviewers. E[mil] Braun, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 29 January 1851,

20-K-1851-01-29. Compare E[mil] Braun, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 1 and 4 January 1851,

20-K-1851-01-04:1. 107 [Otto Wigand Junior], letter (partial copy) to [Friedrich Wetzler], 10 April [1851], 20-

K(DD)-1851-04-10. – Otto Wigand Junior called his father the ‘administrator’ of Weber’s

publishing house. The Beilage zur Illustrirten Zeitung appeared in twenty issues from 10 May

to 1 November 1851. 108 Rudolph Schramm, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 22 April [1851], 20-K-1851-04-22. – No

article published in the Illustrirte Zeitung, either, can be ascribed to Semper.



21

News and the Crystal Palace in the Edinburgh Review.109 Whether he owed the second

opportunity to Schramm or another German journalist, Lothar Bucher for instance

with whom he exchanged ideas about the Great Exhibition,110 is uncertain.

Karoline Heusinger

Semper’s wife Bertha initiated a seductive connection. In the spring of 1850 she

already advised him to visit her old friend Karoline Heusinger, a Saxon woman

living in London since 1841 or 1842 and having ‘many acquaintances among the

noblest families of London’, if political reasons compelled him to escape from

Paris.111 In summer, when Semper announced his trip to London, she sent him

Heusinger’s address and told him: ‘[…] she is a governess in a family whose head is

regarded as a very influential gentleman in London, […] perhaps she can be of some

use to you, too, by introducing you to her employer […].’112 This gentleman was the

lawyer John Campbell.

Semper did not visit Heusinger on his trip. Yet in autumn, shortly after his

definite arrival, he knocked on her door. Since she was staying in Scotland at that

time she could invite him on 7 February 1851 only.113 Then she explained: ‘Lord

Campbell is in a position to which the field of any art remains strange; he is Chief

Justice of the Queen’s Bench; therefore I do not have the tiniest hope, either, to be able

to assist you from this side.’114 Ten days later she reported to Semper that Johann

Nicolaus Trübner and Jonas Carl Hermann Freund whom she had informed about

109 [Gottfried Semper], ‘Die grosse Ausstellung. Die Völker von europäischer und nicht

europäischer Bildung’, Illustrated London News, German supplement, no. 3, 17 May 1851, 34–

35 (reprint in: Karge, ed., Gottfried Semper. Band 1. Erster Teilband, 369–370); [Gottfried

Semper], ‘A Foreign Architect’s Views of the Building’, in: anonymous writer, ‘Official

Catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, 1851. By Authority

of the Royal Commission. Fourth corrected and improved edition, 15th September, 1851.

London: Spicer Brothers, Wholesale Stationers; W. Clowes & Sons, Printers; Contractors to

the Royal Commission’, Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal 50, vol. 94, no. 192, October 1851,

557–598, here 576–578 (reprint in: Karge, ed., Gottfried Semper. Band 1. Erster Teilband, 392–

433, here 411–413). 110 [Gottfried Semper], ‘Plan des Aufsatzes. Briefliche Form’ (manuscript), [1851], 20-Ms-95. 111 Bertha [Semper], letter to [Gottfried] Semper, [May 1850], 20-K-1850-05. 112 ‘[…] sie ist Gesellschafterin in einen [!] Hause, dessen Oberhaupt einen sehr

einflussreichen Man[n] in London vorstellt, […] viel[l]eicht kan[n] sie Dir auch von einigen

[!] Nutzen sein, indem sie Dich dem Herrn, wo sie ist, vorstellt […].’ Bertha [Semper], letter

to [Gottfried] Semper, 16 August [1850], 20-K-1850-08-16. 113 Karoline Heusinger, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 7 February 1851, 20-K-1851-02-07. 114 ‘Lord Campbells Stellung ist eine solche, welcher das Bereich irgens [!] einer Kunst fremd

bleibt; er ist Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench; daher habe ich auch nicht die leiseste Hoffnung,

Ihnen von dieser Seite behülflich sein zu können.’ Karoline Heusinger, letter to [Gottfried

Semper], 7 February 1851, 20-K-1851-02-07.



22

him were very keen on his acquaintance.115 Trübner was a German bookseller and

publisher who had settled in London eight years earlier,116 and Freund was a

Bohemian-Jewish doctor and one of the founders of the German Hospital in

London.117 Moreover, Heusinger announced that she would introduce Semper to

another one of her acquaintances, the royal stable master Wilhelm Meyer.118

Before Semper met these three men he engaged Karoline Heusinger to

translate the programme of the school for architects and engineers which he

intended to establish for continental and British boys.119 In March 1851 he visited

Freund who soon became his new doctor.120 Since Karl Marx also was one of

Freund’s patients in the early 1850s there is a small possibility that he encountered

Semper in an intimate ambience.121

Probably in the spring of 1851, Semper visited Trübner, too.122 About two

years later he drafted a letter for an unknown German, possibly for Trübner,

indicating that he had been asked by the receiver to review at least two books,

among them John Henry Parker’s Some Account of Domestic Architecture in England,

from Edward I. to Richard II., and that he did not like this book. ‘We Germans’, he

explained, ‘cannot accustom ourselves to such collection books and always request

that the matter is dominated by a certain system and that the first, namely the

matter, only forms the base on which a particular idea, a new cognizance, sprouts

up and unfolds itself.’123 An anonymous review of Parker’s book appeared in the

115 K[aroline] Heusinger, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 17 February [1851], 20-K-1851-02-17:1. 116 Karl I[gnaz] (‘J.’) Trübner, ‘Nikolaus Trübner. Nekrolog’ (28 April 1884), Centralblatt für

Bibliothekswesen 1, no. 6, June 1884, 240–246, here 241. 117 Jürgen Püschel, Die Geschichte des German Hospital in London (1845 bis 1948) (= Studien zur

Geschichte des Krankenhauswesens, edited by Axel Hinrich Murken 14), Münster: Murken-

Altrogge, 1980, 22–26. 118 K[aroline] Heusinger, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 17 February [1851], 20-K-1851-02-17:1. 119 Gottfried Semper, letter draft to [Karoline Heusinger], [23] February 1851, 20-K-1851-02-

23(S); K[aroline] Heusinger, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 24 February [1851], 20-K-1851-02-

24:1; Karoline Heusinger, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 24 February [18]51, 20-K-1851-02-24:2;

[Karoline] Heusinger, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 27 February [1851], 20-K-1851-02-27. 120 Karoline Heusinger, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 30 March [1851], 20-K-1851-03-30:3.

Compare E[lise] Semper, letter to Bertha Semper, 20 and 28 February 1852, 20-K(DD)-1852-

02-28. – On 31 December 1854 Freund sent Semper a bill for medical treatment in the years

1851, 1852, 1853 and 1854. [Jonas Carl Hermann] Freund, bill for [Gottfried] Semper, 31

December 1854, 20-K-1854-12-31:2. 121 Compare K[arl] M[arx], letter to [Friedrich] Engels, 22 May 1854; K[arl] M[arx], letter to

[Friedrich] Engels, 21 June 1854; K[arl] M[arx], letter to [Moritz] Elsner, 11 September 1855,

quoted in: Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus, ed., Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Gesamtausgabe

(MEGA). Dritte Abteilung. Band 7. Briefwechsel September 1853 bis März 1856, Berlin: Dietz,

1989, 108; 119–120, here 119; 209–210, here 209. 122 Compare N[icolaus] Trübner, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, [1851 (?)], 20-K-1851:12. 123 ‘Wir Deutschen können uns nicht an dergleichen Sammelwerke gewöhnen und verlangen

immer, dass durch den Stoff ein gewisses System hindurchgehe und dass der erstere, der



23

Athenæum on 16 July 1853.124 It was possibly by Semper, for it was consistent with

his letter draft.

Prince Albert

And what about Wilhelm Meyer? On 24 February 1851, when Karoline Heusinger

told Semper that she had asked Meyer to show him the royal stables, she remarked:

‘I hope that you will find an opportunity to express your wish and that you will

frequently go to Meyer’s anyway; he can be of use to you with reference to the

Prince sooner or later.’125 [Fig. 2, Fig. 3.] Did Semper express his wish when he

visited Meyer in March?126 And what was his wish? Neither of these questions can

be answered. Probably, he considered to arrange an incidental meeting with Prince

Albert rather than to enforce an official one. However, Heusinger indicated on 26

August that Semper had not met Albert in the royal stables yet.127

Semper was advised to approach the native German Prince also by other

Germans. His old friend Franz Georg Stammann, a Hamburg architect, suggested to

attain Albert’s ‘patronage’ for the school for architects and engineers on 9 March

1851,128 and on 4 October Semper was told by his wife Bertha that the Bavarian

lithographer and photographer Franz Hanfstaengl intended to talk to Queen

Victoria and Prince Albert about him and his ‘affairs’.129 ‘Perhaps’, she added,

‘Hanfstängel can introduce you to the Queen, her husband is said to favour and

foster the arts, thus the artists, too – God may have mercy that you get an

employment or at least assignments which are of use to you.’130

Stoff nämlich, nur die Basis bilde, worauf ein bestimmter Gedanke, eine neue Erkenntniss

emporkeimt und sich entfaltet.’ [Gottfried Semper], fragmentary letter draft to anonymous

person, [1853], 20-K-1853(S). Compare [John Henry Parker], Some Account of Domestic

Architecture in England, from Edward I. to Richard II. With Notices of Foreign Examples, and

Numerous Illustrations of Existing Remains from Original Drawings, Oxford and London: John

Henry Parker, 1853. 124 Anonymous writer, ‘Reviews. Some Account of Domestic Architecture in England, from

Edward I. to Richard II. By the Editor of “The Glossary of Architecture.” J. H. Parker’,

Athenæum. Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts 26, no. 1342, 16

July 1853, 850–851. 125 ‘Ich hoffe, dass Sie Gelegenheit finden werden, Ihren Wunsch auszusprechen; überhaupt,

dass Sie öfter zu Meyer gehen werden; er kann Ihnen in Bezug auf den Prinzen nützlich

werden.’ Karoline Heusinger, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 24 February [18]51, 20-K-1851-02-

24:2. 126 Compare Karoline Heusinger, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 30 March [1851], 20-K-1851-03-

30:3. 127 Karoline Heusinger, letter to [Gottfried Semper], 26 August [1851], 20-K-1851-08-26. 128 F[ranz] Geo[rg] Stammann, letter to W[ilhelm] Semper, 9 March [18]51, 20-K(DD)-1851-03-

09:2. 129 Bertha [Semper], letter to Gottfried Semper, 4 October [1851], 20-K-1851-10-04:2. 130 ‘Viel[l]eicht kan[n] Dich Hanfstängel der Königin vorstellen, ihr Man[n] soll ja die Künste

begünstigen und fördern, also auch die Künstler, – Gott gebe seinen Segen dazu, das[s] Du

eine Anstellung, oder doch wenigsten[s] Aufträge erhältst, die Dir von Nutzen sind.’ Bertha

[Semper], letter to Gottfried Semper, 4 October [1851], 20-K-1851-10-04:2.



24

Figure 2 Karoline Heusinger, letter to Gottfried Semper, 24 February 1851 (left side: page 4; right side: page 1). Ink

on paper, 18,3 cm · 22,4 cm. ETH Zurich, gta archives, Semper estate, 20-K-1851-02-24:2.

There is no evidence that Hanfstaengl, if he really visited Victoria and Albert,

achieved any direct success. Wolfgang Herrmann has refuted Winslow Ames’

assumption that the mysterious ‘private request’ (‘Privataufforderung’) to write

Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst emanated from Albert.131 He has supposed that

Edwin Chadwick requested Semper to write this book.132 Why has he not considered

the possibility that Henry Cole was the solicitant?

131 Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 60 (fn. 205). Compare Semper, Wissenschaft, Industrie

und Kunst, 1; Winslow Ames, Prince Albert and Victorian Taste, London: Chapman and Hall,

1968, 93. – Herrmann’s remark that Sebastian Müller has also ascribed the ‘private request’

to Prince Albert is not precise, for Müller has alleged that Albert appointed Semper to the

direction of the reform of the English arts and crafts education in 1851. Sebastian Müller,

Kunst und Industrie. Ideologie und Organisation des Funktionalismus in der Architektur (=

Kunstwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen des Ulmer Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft, edited by Horst

Bredekamp, Klaus Herding, Lutz Heusinger, Berthold Hinz and Wolfgang Kemp 2), Munich: Carl

Hanser, 1974, 113–114. 132 Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 60 (fn. 205).



25

Figure 3 Karoline Heusinger, letter to Gottfried Semper, 24 February 1851 (left side: page 2; right side: page 3). Ink

on paper, 18,3 cm · 22,4 cm. ETH Zurich, gta archives, Semper estate, 20-K-1851-02-24:2.

Semper was respected by Prince Albert for the first verifiable time in the

autumn of 1852 when he designed Arthur Wellesley’s, the Duke of Wellington’s,

funeral car with Richard Redgrave and Octavius Hudson. On 24 October, after a

conference which he had not attended for unknown reasons, Cole reported to him:

‘The Prince liked many parts of your design […].’133 When George Grove invited

Semper on 30 May 1854 to the untimely opening ceremony of the Crystal Palace in

Sydenham he instructed him: ‘In order that you may not be put to inconvenience I

take an early opportunity of telling you that on the occasion of the opening of the

Palace by Her Majesty, you will have to be dressed as you would at one of Her

Majesty’s Levées, that is either in an official Costume, or in an ordinary Court

Dress.’134 Again, there is no evidence that Semper encountered Prince Albert at this

ceremony. In the spring of 1855, when he had already decided to accept a

professorship in Zurich, Cole entrusted him, on Albert’s behalf, with the design of a

133 Henry Cole, letter to [Gottfried] Semper, [24 October 1852], 20-K-1852-10-24. 134 G[eorge] Grove, letter to G[ottfried] Semper, 30 May 1854, 20-K-1854-05-30:2. – The

opening ceremony took place on 10 June 1854.



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group of cultural buildings in Kensington.135 Did Semper meet Albert at last by

entering through an office door? On 14 June he wrote to his wife: ‘Cole has finally

arrived here now, and I have a conference with him and perhaps also with the

Prince tomorrow, on Friday.’136 Perhaps! Twelve days later Semper left London.137

Dieter Weidmann completed studies in architecture and postgraduate studies in

history and theory of architecture at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule

(ETH) in Zurich. In 2011 he received his doctorate at the ETH with a thesis on

Gottfried Semper’s Zurich ‘Polytechnic’. Involved in a research cooperation of the

ETH and the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Mendrisio, he is currently

taking part in preparing an edition of texts written by Semper in London.

[email protected]

135 Herrmann, Gottfried Semper im Exil, 88–90. 136 ‘Cole ist nun endlich hier angekommen, und ich habe Morgen Freitag eine Besprechung

mit ihm und vielleicht auch mit dem Prinzen.’ [Gottfried Semper], letter to [Bertha Semper],

14 June 1855, 20-K-1855-06-14(S). 137 On 26 June 1855 Semper obtained a passport ‘for France & Switzerland’. One day later he

arrived at the Hôtel de Paris in Rouen. Priestley (?), note (26 June 1855) on: Fletcher Wilson,

passport for Gottfried Semper, 17 March 1855, 20-DOK-1855:3; Gibon, bill for [Gottfried

Semper], 28 [June 1855], 20-DOK-1855:13.

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