Eduard Bendemann

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Eduard Julius Friedrich Bendemann (3 December 1811; Berlin – 27 December 1889; Düsseldorf) was a German painter.

His father, a Jewish banker, had closely monitored his education, one that would have naturally led him to some sort of technical occupation, but due to his talent and propensity towards art, he was allowed to pursue other interests. After he completed elementary school he enrolled in the Wilhem von Schadows School in Dusseldorf. In 1830 he went on a school trip to Italy. After a series of jobs, among them with Boas and Ruth, his talent as an artist began to show, especially with his very large 1832 painting titled, The Sad Jews of Babylon which was featured in the Berlin art exhibition. The picture garnered a great deal of attention, which was in part due to the deep and simple feeling and the noble composition of the piece (museum in Cologne). Bendemanns second picture: The Two Girls at the Well (1832), was acquired by the North Rhine-Westphalia art association.

Soon thereafter followed Jeremias on the Ruins of Jerusalem for which the artist received a medal in Paris in 1837. This painting was for the most part about the progress of the Jews in Babylon. (Royal Palace in Hanover). His best known work is The Harvest.

The artist’s first fresco was a symbolic representation of the art at the “Poetry Well” at the house of his parents-in-law in Berlin. In the year 1838 he was appointed professor of the academy of arts in Dresden, where he had the opportunity to paint even larger frescos. Bendemann was given the task to decorate three halls of the Dresden royal palace, the throne room, the tower room, and the tower hall with wall paintings. In the throne room, on both sides of the throne, there are representations of important rulers and legislators in gold leaf with smaller representations in relief form below, from Moses up to Albrecht III, the King at the time. On the wall facing the throne there are four paintings depicting events from the life of King Heinrich I each with other pictures attached which explain each of the four events.