1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ainmuller, Maximilian Emmanuel

1416561911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 1 — Ainmuller, Maximilian Emmanuel

AINMULLER, MAXIMILIAN EMMANUEL (1807–1870), German artist and glass-painter, was born at Munich on the 14th of February 1807. By the advice of Gartner, director of the royal porcelain manufactory, he devoted himself to the study of glass-painting, both as a mechanical process and as an art, and in 1828 he was appointed director of the newly-founded royal painted-glass manufactory at Munich. The method which he gradually perfected there was a development of the enamel process adopted in the Renaissance, and consisted in actually painting the design upon the glass, which was subjected, as each colour was laid on, to carefully-adjusted heating. The earliest specimens of Ainmuller’s work are to be found in the cathedral of Regensburg. With a few exceptions, all the windows in Glasgow cathedral are from his hand. Specimens may also be seen in St Paul’s cathedral, and Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Cologne cathedral contains some of his finest productions. Ainmuller had considerable skill as an oil-painter, especially in interiors, his pictures of the Chapel Royal at Windsor and of Westminster Abbey being much admired. He died on the 9th of December 1870.