Georg Paul
Buchner

Portrait painter, miniaturist, draftsman, lithographer, musician, theater impresario, owner of a lithographic printing shop, publisher, dealer in broadsheets and maps,

Father of Christoph Michael and Johann Georg. Married May 3, 1814, to Christina Margaretha Bernhardine Lehmann (c. 1786 – † June 29, 1861), with four children. He was likely self-taught. On November 7, 1803, as a miniaturist and trained musician, he was granted citizenship with the restriction that he could not practice music. However, in 1829, he was the music director of the Royal Landwehr (militia). He sketched contemporary events and painted landscapes. Around 1808, he worked as a portrait painter in Munich, where he presumably learned lithography. In 1808, he founded the second lithographic printing shop in Nuremberg (after Campe). On June 22, 1816, he received a license as a lithographer and dealer in broadsheets and maps. Most of Buchner's early lithographs were based on his own drawings. Initially, portraits predominated, but later he illustrated current local events such as royal visits, military exercises, theatrical performances, horse races, and criminal cases. Among his landscapes, eight sheets of Schmausenbuck near Nuremberg from 1832 are worth mentioning. A noteworthy work is "The Rhine Journey in 24 Pictures," drawn on stone by Buchner himself and also colored by him. He only occasionally worked from the works of old masters (Annibale Carracci) and contemporary artists (Friedrich Fleischmann, Christian Fues, Christian Klein, Georg Christoph Wilder). There are also lithographs made with tint stones. Buchner's prints were often intended to be colored. The scarcity of surviving prints, along with stylistic and qualitative variations, makes it difficult to compile and categorize his own works and the lithographs by other artists that he merely published. A specialty of his was picture sheets used for children's puppet theater, the so-called paper theater. Some of the broadsheets are dedicated to Nuremberg's past (The Young Burgraves and the Departure of the Scythe Smiths, 1827; In Memory of Albrecht Dürer, 1828; Hans Sachs, 1828). Miniature portraits on ivory are also documented for 1823. Together with Jakob Daniel Burgschmiet, the mechanic Bernhard Bauer, and the master turner Maichel (Meuchelt), Buchner built mechanical puppets, equestrians, and tightrope walkers in 1818, copies of works by Johann Tendler, which he presented to the public that same year at the "Golden Eagle" inn. From 1820 to 1821, they toured Germany with their automaton theater. Mechanical figures were produced in his workshop in Nuremberg and exported as far as England and Russia. By 1829, Buchner was living on his own property at pp. 1094 and 1095 (Unterer Judenhof 2 and 4), where he resided until his death. Panzer recorded three portrait engravings he signed, based on his own designs. A watercolor portrait of himself, dated 1819, by Jakob Daniel Burgschmiet (German National Museum, on loan from the City of Nuremberg), also exists. After his death, his company operated as G. P. Buchner's Widow and Sons. In the 1856 directory, the company appears as Rupert Krausser, formerly Buchner & Sessner, Theresienstrasse; the lithographic printing business continued until at least 1864.

Museums: Berlin, Imperial Cabinet; Museum of German Folklore. Nuremberg, Museum of the State Museum of Art and Cultural History: three drawings; Lithographs: –, City Library; –, German National Museum. Stuttgart, State Gallery.

Literature: AKL; Thieme-Becker; C. G. Müller, 1791, vol. II, pp. 11, 20; Billmann, 1922. Th. Hampe, Biographies from Franconia, 1930, pp. 72–75; Reynst, 1962; M. Mende, 1971; H. R. Purschke, in: MVGN 68, 1981. Exhibitions: 1821/1; 1954/3, p. 4; 1962/8; 1971/8, nos. 51, 52, 62; 1989/3; 1991/1. 

Matthias Mende

(quoted from the Nuremberg Artists' Lexicon, edited by Manfred H. Grieb)