Januarius Zick Biography

Januarius Zick (1730–1797) was a German painter and draughtsman whose work ranged from large church frescoes to intimate scenes of domestic life. He was born in Munich on 6 February 1730, the son of the painter Johann Zick, from whom he received his first artistic training.

He also trained as a mason, gaining practical knowledge of architectural decoration that later proved useful in his extensive fresco commissions. As a young man he assisted his father with decorations at the Würzburg Residence and Bruchsal Palace. He subsequently travelled to Paris, Basel and Rome, where he encountered French and Italian painting and met Anton Raphael Mengs.

In the early 1760s Zick became court painter to the Elector of Trier and settled in Ehrenbreitstein, near Koblenz. He painted religious scenes, portraits and subjects drawn from mythology and history, while also undertaking major decorative commissions for churches and palaces. His work combines the movement and rich colour of late Baroque painting with Rococo elegance and an increasing interest in natural observation.

Alongside his ambitious public works, Zick painted smaller genre pictures. Interior Scene, Morning (1779), a signed painting recorded in the Louvre's collection, is an example of this more domestic side of his art. The work shows how eighteenth-century artists could apply the same attention to lighting, gesture and storytelling to everyday subjects as to religious and historical scenes.

From the late 1770s he painted frescoes and altarpieces for churches in southern Germany, and he also designed decorative inlays for the cabinetmaker David Roentgen. Zick died in Ehrenbreitstein on 14 November 1797.