It has been quite a while since my Great Great Grandson has had more information about my life and works to place before you.
However, thanks to the keen interest of his wife Robyn seen below, an amount of information amazing and surprising to them both has come to light. I am glad that you will be able to see what I dedicated my life to, more fully.
Firstly it would be good to get my full name on the record: I was baptised Carl Julius Christoph Eberhard Dopmeier, and I married Johanne Margarethe Streidt.Our daughter Ernestine Johanne. Margarethe Dopmeier was born in 1854. She, in turn, married Conrad Ludwig Beckmann and they are the Great Grandparents of my Great Great Grandson.
My GGGrandson is assuming that Dopmeier and Dopmeyer are simply alternative spellings.
But now, he is insisting on telling you more about me because he has formed the very clear opinion that I was a very important artist in my time.
I was born as you already know, on 24th October 1824 and by age 14 years in 1838, I was training with the Sculptor August Hengst in Hannover. and I later moved on to train under the sculptors Professor Schonlaub, and Hauser in Munich. From 1851 -1856 I studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich funded by a grant from the King of Hannover. In 1856 I returned to Hannover to work as a sculptor, becoming a Member of the Association of Artists and in due course in 1888, I was awarded the title of Professor by the Kaiser Wilhelm I.
I was fortunate in forming a good association with the prominent and successful architect Conrad Wilhelm Hase and we developed a very close collaboration. In fact my house and studio at No.7 St.Andrew Street, Springe adjoined the home of Hase at No.8 "Hasenburg". Both properties were built in 1860-1861 to designs by Hase. Over the years I completed a vast number of statues, reliefs, Altars and church furnishings and Pulpits for Hase projects.
Here is a link to a list (in German) of all of my main works:
http://www.glass-portal.privat.t-online.de/hs/a-f/dopmeyer_carl.htm
You will note numerous Lutheran churches, Royal Castles and the fact that from 1880 to 1883 I was working at Wernigerode Schloss on the Reliefs, Altar, Pulpit etc. we have already dealt with in this Blog.
It is a sizeable body of work which received good and favourable recognition in its own time.
My GG Grandson has found that upon my death in 1899, a Commemorative Exhibition was held in Hannover in 1900. The following year the works remaining in my studio were auctioned in Hannover. And after 1902, some of my works in the new Provincial Museum (Landesmuseum) have been shown as permanent exhibits and may still remain there.
My GGGrandson has concluded from all of the foregoing that it must have been my connections that facilitated for him the obtaining of the commission to paint the grand murals in the Banqueting Hall at Schloss Wernigerode. This work was carried out in the wake of the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf of Chancellor Bismarck from 1871 to 1878 and the murals depict the Duke's reception of Lutheran teachers and depriving of the Catholics of their ancient Monastery and their efforts to regain it which ultimately failed.
MY GREAT GREAT GRANDSON TONY DIXON
