Reichsfreiherr

Freiherr

The German titles Freiherr and Freifrau and Freiin are titles of nobility, used preceding a person's given name or, after 1919, before the surname...

 and Reichsgraf

Graf

Graf is a historical German noble title equal in rank to a count or a British earl...

 Marshal

Marshal

Marshal , is a word used in several official titles of various branches of society. The word is an ancient loan word from Old French, cf...

 Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg (8 August 1661 in Emden

Emden, Saxony-Anhalt

Emden is a village and a former municipality in the Börde district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2010, it is part of the municipality Altenhausen....

 near Magdeburg

Magdeburg

Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 – 14 March 1747 in Verona

Verona

Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

) was a distinguished aristocrat (imperial

Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...

 count

Count

A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...

) and general of Brandenburg-Prussian descent who served in the Saxon

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

 and Venetian

Republic of Venice

The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...

 armies in the early eighteenth century and found a second career in retirement in Venice, as a grand collector and patron. His sister was Melusine von der Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal. His father was Gustavus Adolphus Baron von der Schulenberg.

Schulenburg as mercenary

Between 1687 and 1688 he fought with the Imperial troops against the Turks in Hungary. On his return he rose in the ranks of the army of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In 1699 he became a Colonel in the German regiment in the service of Victor Amadeus II of Savoy

Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia

Victor Amadeus II was Duke of Savoy from 1675 to 1730. He also held the titles of marquis of Saluzzo, duke of Montferrat, prince of Piedmont, count of Aosta, Moriana and Nizza. Louis XIV organised his marriage in order to maintain French influence in the Duchy but Victor Amadeus soon broke away...

, and was severely wounded in 1701. In 1702 he joined the Saxon Army and fought in the Great Northern War

Great Northern War

The Great Northern War was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in northern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I the Great of Russia, Frederick IV of...

 against Charles XII of Sweden

Charles XII of Sweden

Charles XII also Carl of Sweden, , Latinized to Carolus Rex, Turkish: Demirbaş Şarl, also known as Charles the Habitué was the King of the Swedish Empire from 1697 to 1718...

 and suffered defeats in the Battle of Klissow and the Battle of Fraustadt

Battle of Fraustadt

The Battle of Fraustadt was fought on February 2, 1706 / February 3, 1706 / February 13, 1706 between Sweden and Saxony-Poland and their Russian allies near Fraustadt in Poland. During the Battle of Fraustadt on February 3, August II was only 120 kilometers away with a cavalry force about 8000...

. In 1707 he returned to Western Europe and fought under Prince Eugene at the Battle of Oudenaarde and the Battle of Malplaquet

Battle of Malplaquet

The Battle of Malplaquet, fought on 11 September 1709, was one of the main battles of the War of the Spanish Succession, which opposed the Bourbons of France and Spain against an alliance whose major members were the Habsburg Monarchy, Great Britain, the United Provinces and the Kingdom of...

 in the wars of Spanish Succession

War of the Spanish Succession

The War of the Spanish Succession was fought among several European powers, including a divided Spain, over the possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under one Bourbon monarch. As France and Spain were among the most powerful states of Europe, such a unification would have...

.

The latter service brought him to the attention of Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

. He was recruited by Venice into the successful defence of Corfu

Corfu

Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...

 during the 1716 Siege against the invading Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 Turks; he was decorated by the Serenissima for his outstanding success with a statue and a pension of 5000 ducats a year. A Vivaldi opera, Juditha triumphans

Juditha triumphans

Juditha triumphans devicta Holofernis barbarie translated as Judith triumphant over the barbarians of Holofernes, Vivaldi catalogue number RV 644, is an oratorio by Antonio Vivaldi, the only survivor of the four that he is known to have composed...

, was commissioned in celebration of the victory.

Schulenburg as art collector

In his retirement in Venice from 1718, Schulenburg proved a remarkable collector of art while residing in the Palazzo Loredan on the Grand Canal of Venice

Grand Canal of Venice

The Grand Canal is a canal in Venice, Italy. It forms one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city...

. He began as a serious collector in 1724, at the age of sixty-three, with a purchase of eighty-eight paintings and a bas-relief by Pierre Puget from a Venetian picture-dealer, Santi Rota, who had obtained them from the collection of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga

Charles IV, Duke of Mantua

Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga was the only child of Duke Charles II of Mantua and Montferrat, and the last ruler of the Duchy of Mantua of the House of Gonzaga.-Biography:...

, the last ruler of the Duchy of Mantua

Duchy of Mantua

The Duchy of Mantua was a duchy in Lombardy, Northern Italy, subject to the Holy Roman Empire.-History:After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Mantua was invaded by Byzantines, Longobards and Franks. In the 11th century it became a possession of Boniface of Canossa, marquis of Toscana...

, deposed by Habsburg

Habsburg

The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

 Austrian empire; Gonzaga works of art included works by Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

, Correggio, Giorgione

Giorgione

Giorgione was a Venetian painter of the High Renaissance in Venice, whose career was cut off by his death at a little over thirty. Giorgione is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are acknowledged for certain to be his work...

, Giulio Romano

Giulio Romano

Giulio Romano was an Italian painter and architect. A pupil of Raphael, his stylistic deviations from high Renaissance classicism help define the 16th-century style known as Mannerism...

, and Castiglione

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione was an Italian Baroque artist, painter, printmaker and draftsman, of the Genoese school. He is best known now for his elaborate engravings, and as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monotyping. He was known as Il Grechetto in Italy and in France as Le...

. In addition Schulenburg had access to many royal families, including the Hanoverians, Bourbons, and Habsburg; and served them as an intermediary and bon-vivant host in the Venetian republic. His portrait was painted by Bartolomeo Nazari

Bartolomeo Nazari

Bartolomeo Nazari was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque, mainly active in Venice as a portraitist.Born in Clusone, near Bergamo. By 1716, he had become an apprentice under Angelo Trevisani, but visited in 1723 the Roman studio of Angelo's brother, the Venetian Francesco Trevisani, and then...

, Giuseppe Nogari

Giuseppe Nogari

Giuseppe Nogari was a Venetian painter of the Rococo, where he painted mainly painted half-body portraits, either real or of historical and religious figures. They are striking for their emotional content, subdued decoration and coloration, and often display aged individuals in somewhat homely or...

, Giacomo Ceruti

Giacomo Ceruti

Giacomo Antonio Melchiorre Ceruti was an Italian late Baroque painter, active in Northern Italy in Milan, Brescia, and Venice. He acquired the nickname Pitocchetto for his many paintings of peasants dressed in rags.He was born in Milan, but worked primarily in Brescia...

, Gian Antonio Guardi (in Ca' Rezzonico

Ca' Rezzonico

Ca' Rezzonico is a palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice. Today it is a public museum dedicated to 18th century Venice. - Design :Ca' Rezzonico stands on the right bank of the canal, at the point where it is joined by the Rio di San Barnaba. The site was previously occupied by two houses...

), Francesco Simonini

Francesco Simonini

Francesco Simonini was an Italian painter.-Biography:Born in Parma, Simonini was trained at the school of Francesco Monti under the guidance of his fellow pupil Ilario Spolverini...

, and Piazzetta, and he was sculpted by Antonio Corradini

Antonio Corradini

Antonio Corradini was a Venetian Rococo sculptor.Corradini was born in Este and worked mainly in the Veneto, but also completed commissions for work outside Venice, including Naples....

 and Gian Maria Morlaiter.

Schulenburg supported Gian Antonio Guardi with a monthly salary, 1730-36, and on a commission basis thereafter. In general, Guardi worked at making portraits of the foreign aristocracy and royalty to impressively fill the walls at Ca' Loredan, and at copying masterpieces of the Venetian past including works of Paolo Veronese

Paolo Veronese

Paolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...

 and Tintoretto

Tintoretto

Tintoretto , real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso...

. Francesco Simonini

Francesco Simonini

Francesco Simonini was an Italian painter.-Biography:Born in Parma, Simonini was trained at the school of Francesco Monti under the guidance of his fellow pupil Ilario Spolverini...

 was commissioned to produce a series of paintings commemorating Schulenburg's battles. Canaletto

Canaletto

Giovanni Antonio Canal better known as Canaletto , was a Venetian painter famous for his landscapes, or vedute, of Venice. He was also an important printmaker in etching.- Early career :...

 painted a view of Corfu, the site of his victories.

He also employed Giambattista Pittoni

Giambattista Pittoni

Giambattista Pittoni was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period, active mainly in his native Venice....

, 1733-38, for history paintings, and as advisor and restorer. Finally, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta was an Italian rococo painter of religious subjects and genre scenes.-Biography:...

 had a close relationship with the Marshal, both as painter as an agent for buying both Flemish and genre paintings, two types of works popular with Schulenburg; Piazzetta made an inventory of the collection in 1739.

Schulenburg's paintings were mainly Italian works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with some Flemish and Dutch paintings. He owned six paintings by Giacomo Ceruti

Giacomo Ceruti

Giacomo Antonio Melchiorre Ceruti was an Italian late Baroque painter, active in Northern Italy in Milan, Brescia, and Venice. He acquired the nickname Pitocchetto for his many paintings of peasants dressed in rags.He was born in Milan, but worked primarily in Brescia...

. He owned vedute

Veduta

A veduta is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting of a cityscape or some other vista....

by Michele Marieschi

Michele Marieschi

Michele Marieschi , also known as Michiel, was a Venetian painter of landscapes and cityscapes who painted his vedute, or views, mostly in Venice....

, Luca Carlevaris, Giovanni Battista Cimaroli

Giovanni Battista Cimaroli

Giovanni Battista Cimaroli was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, mainly active in Brescia.Born in Salò and studied under Antonio Aureggio and Antonio Calza. He painted many commissions, often landscapes, for British patrons.-References:...

, Antonio Joli

Antonio Joli

Antonio Joli was an Italian painter of veduta.Born in Modena, he first apprenticed with Rafaello Rinaldi. He then worked in Rome with Panini and the Galli-Bibiena studio. He became a painter of stage sets for the theater in Modena and Perugia...

, Marco Ricci

Marco Ricci

Marco Ricci was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He was the nephew of Sebastiano Ricci. After receiving his first instruction in art from his uncle, he visited Rome, where he was for some years occupied in drawing vedute....

, and Francesco Zuccarelli

Francesco Zuccarelli

Francesco Zuccarelli was an Italian Rococo painter.He was born at Pitigliano, in southern Tuscany, where he initially apprenticed with Paolo Anesi...

; thus he overlapped to some degree with the collecting of the contemporary British ambassador, Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith (1682–1770)

Joseph Smith , the British consul at Venice, 1744–1760, was a patron of artists, most notably Canaletto, and a collector and connoisseur, banker to the British community at Venice and a major draw on the British Grand Tour...

. Many of his works were transferred to his estates in Germany, like Emden, Hehlen and Beetzendorf

Beetzendorf

Beetzendorf is a municipality in the district Altmarkkreis Salzwedel, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany....

. Schulenburg did not have children, and, though he willed his collection en bloc to his nephew Reichsgraf Adolf Friedrich von der Schulenburg-Beetzendorf with the stipulation that they be kept together, in a palais in Berlin, his will was not honoured, and after his death his collection was dispersed. A distinguished customer was Frederick II of Prussia

Frederick II of Prussia

Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...

. A group of 150 were sold at auction in London in April 1775.

Literature

• Fr. Albr. v. d. Schulenburg: Leben und Denkwürdigkeiten des Johann Matthias v. d. Schulenburg (Leipzig 1834, 2 vols.). (Life and facts about Johann Matthias Schulenburg (Leipzig 1834, 2 Vol.))
• Werner v. d. Schulenburg: Der König von Korfu 1950. A novelistic account of the siege of Corfu.Roman über die Verteidigung Korfus gegen die Türken); 1950. (The King of Corfu. An account of the defense of Corfu against the Turks. (1950)).

External links