Obituary for Jakob Ulrich Pirchstaller, Imperial-Royal Drawing Master and Statuary in Merano

Appendix.

Obituary.

A monument has already been set up in these pages for many a deserving man of our small fatherland. Such an honor seems also to have been earned by Mr. Jakob Ulrich Pirchstaller, Imperial-Royal drawing master and statuary in Merano, who passed away in Mais on February 14 of this year.

His parents were Veit Pirchstaller and Maria Gratl, merchants in Trens, in the parish of Stilfes, where he was baptized on July 3, 1756.

He learned the rudiments of drawing and sculpting from his cousin, the sculptor and polychromer Gratl in Innsbruck. His abilities and untiring diligence earned him admission to the Imperial-Royal Free Academy of United Fine Arts in Vienna, to which he departed at the end of November 1775.

For six years he attended the public lectures there continuously during the winter months; in summertime he found the opportunity at the Imperial-Royal Court Building Directorate to practice under the most distinguished masters in all branches of architecture and other artistic works.

With the certificate stating "that during this time, through diligent application, he made quite extraordinary progress in his art," he returned to his fatherland in the late autumn of 1781.

The Prince-Bishop of Brixen, Count Joseph von Spauer, then entrusted him with the construction of the facade of the beautiful cathedral church there.

In the year 1785 he was called to Merano, where he built the new marble high altar in the parish church.

There, on his own initiative, he established a public drawing school, which subsequently also received highest imperial approval. Many a former pupil among the students and apprentice craftsmen remembers him with gratitude.

He had a special friend in the Imperial-Royal land judge of that time, D. Hellrigl von Rechtenfeld. Even from Brixen, where Hellrigl was city judge from 1790 onwards, the latter maintained a confidential correspondence with him and consulted him on public buildings.

On account of his merits, Pirchstaller was granted citizenship by the city of Merano, admitted to the rank of magistrate councilors of the time, and employed as administrator of the civic hospital.

On November 23, 1795, he married Magdalena Teiß from the Passeier Valley.

In the same year, on December 18, his brother, Johann Pirchstaller, became the city parish priest in Brixen.

The hours free from attending to the considerable administration and supervision of the hospital economy he devoted to continued study and various works of his art. There remain several bas-reliefs etc. of plaster crafted by him, which he knew how to bronze through a technique learned in Vienna so that one would truly take them for metal. Pirchstaller produced countless building plans and similar drawings, and also surveyed several local areas.

That his drawings lack not accuracy, but rather delicacy, is not surprising, since his hand had grown too strong through his favorite work with chisel and hammer in marble.

His advice was sought for the various buildings of the city and of private individuals, which he always rendered with zealous readiness. Master masons, carpenters, and joiners especially honored him as their father. During repeated inundations of the Passer and Etsch, and in constructing defenses against them, he rendered many excellent services in earlier years through his expertise. In conflagrations, he saved many an adjoining house, indeed many a thatched roof, by sprinkling it with salted water.

During the war period from the year 1796 onwards, his skill and activity were fully demanded on all sides for the victualing provisions of the many passing Imperial-Royal troops, the territorial defense institutions, etc.

Nobody believed less in the duration of the events that began from the second half of December 1805 than Pirchstaller. Nothing could extinguish in his ordered heart his gratitude for the supreme favors personally enjoyed in Vienna, nor his attachment to the Austrian Imperial House and his love for the fatherland. Joyfully and with fiery zeal, he offered head, hands, and feet during the events of the year 1809; yet he never bore a weapon. Nevertheless, during their night-time retreat from Merano, he was dragged along to Terlan by the French as a prisoner, or hostage, bound to one of the peasants from the village of Tirol. He could easily have fled on the way, like his bound companion; his good conscience and honesty did not permit it. A horse stable was his quarter there, a morsel thrown to him here and there his salvation from starvation. But even under repeated threats of execution, his courage and composure did not fail. After 10 agonized days, the returning enemy brought him back with them to Merano, where he then gained his freedom.

Since his many public-spirited side activities were recognized and nothing was found wanting in his administration of the hospital, no account had been demanded of him for many years. Conscious of his fidelity and convinced that the fund entrusted to him had not decreased, he gave little thought to it, ever concerned only for the good cause. Public order demanded an exact and documented accounting, which Pirchstaller was unable to produce for the above reasons; he was therefore removed from office, and his modest personal property was seized. Sad was his situation in his honored advanced age; his earnings were restricted solely to the small income from stone work, tombstones, and the like. Although he resigned himself to it with innate serenity and Christian composure, his mind and body suffered noticeably under this distress. — The drawing school had already ceased with the closure of the gymnasium in 1808. It was not re-established upon the opening of a secondary school in 1810. At the insistence of the prefect, Fr. Benedikt Langes, who was wholly committed to all that is good and useful and so highly deserving regarding education in Merano, Pirchstaller resumed his instruction in 1815. Upon representations and petitions from all sides, a provisional salary of 150 fl. W. W. annually from the hospital fund was finally most graciously assigned to him on November 3, 1817.

In the year 1816, Pirchstaller discovered a white, fine marble quarry in the mountains to the southwest, about 3 hours above the city, near the parcel Quadrat, in the parish of Partschins. He had to send several pieces of it, shaped according to measurements sent to him, to Vienna to the statuary Mr. Leopold Kißling, who valued him "as an experienced artist" and could rely on his "well-known accuracy."

Pirchstaller was altogether a very upright, selfless, obliging man; yet open and direct; though in his final years very indecisive, and despite all his busyness lacking vigor; from his youth to his end a sincere Christian. He retained the outward decorum acquired in Vienna through all the play of fickle worldly fortune. He paid such mind to the fulfillment of his duties that four days before his death, already mortally ill, he could not be persuaded to forgo the drawing school. Peace to his ashes, and honor!