Julius Döring


Julius Döring was a Baltic German painter, drawing teacher, historian, archaeologist, librarian and museum worker.

Biography

Döring attended the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. From 1838 he was trained there by Eduard Bendemann as portrait and history painter. In 1844, he traveled through southern Germany and northern Italy, drawing costumes for the poet E. Duller's "History of the German People".
After the painting of his first altar painting in 1845 in Duren, Poznan, he was invited to Mitau to work as a drawing teacher at Jelgava Gymnasium, in addition to which he also taught private lessons, was actively engaged in making portraits and painting church altarpieces. Döring was a long-time member of the Kurzeme Society of Literature and Art. Since 1860 he worked as a librarian at the Kurland Provincial Museum and Athenaeum. From 1887, he was a corresponding member of the Learned Estonian Society in Dorpat.
In 1852 he toured Germany, Italy and France.
He was interested in the latest literature and spoke French and Italian.
He went on a trip to Greece and Palestine in 1885 and 1889.

Paintings

In his lifetime, Döring created 1,106 portraits, 23 altar paintings and three historical genre paintings. Of his portraits, only a few have survived. Portrait orders came most often from landlords and civic circles. Most of his altar paintings have survived. They are conventional and traditional, directly or indirectly following earlier works. Several almost identical repetitions of compositions show a typical production.

Archaeology

In 1863 Döring studied stone ships in Bīlava and Birznieks in Talsi Municipality archaeologically.
On April 14, 1866, Döring along with August Bielenstein,,, and others led excavations in Tērvete and .
The activities of Döring as researcher in Lithuania covered a period of twelve years and were related to Semigallian and Curonian hill forts, two burial monuments near Griežė, the 15-17th-century fortification at the, and other small scale archaeological research or exploration. He described an imported winged brooch found at, listed the findings at Griežė tumuli, commented on the article by Tadeusz Dowgird regarding findings at. Döring made drawings and plans of some of the locations he visited.

Main published works