Otto Boetticher

Painter and lithographer Otto Boetticher (circa 1816–died after 1864) is known today for his precise and detailed renderings of military subjects. He depicted units on duty, in camp, marching in formation, and, in perhaps his most memorable image, playing baseball in a military prison.

Little is known of Boetticher’s early life, and scholars have uncovered few details to illuminate his artistic training. He was born in Germany or Prussia sometime around 1816. He served in the Prussian army, reportedly as an officer, before immigrating to America about 1850. [1] It is possible that the cause of his departure was related to the revolutions of 1848; in the wake of this short-lived democratic revolution, many liberal officers in the Prussian army experienced discrimination when pro-monarchy forces regained power in the country.

In America, Boetticher settled in New York, where he entered into a business partnership with the German-born lithographer Charles Gildermeister and produced several lithographs on military subjects. One print from this period depicts the 1855 encampment of the Seventh Regiment of the New York National Guard; another represents the Eighth Regiment at the Quarantine Station on Staten Island. [2] In addition, he produced a rare print illustrating the Turn Out of the Employees of the American Express Company, Jay & Staple Streets, New York City June 21, 1858. [3]

Boetticher also painted, and his 1851 oil depicting the Seventh Regiment on Review, Washington Square, New York, is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The painting shows the dignified procession of the military unit through a city square. The well-ordered park in which they have assembled is bordered by elegant townhouses, and a graceful church and New York University buildings are visible in the background. Finely dressed spectators line the paths where the unit marches, giving the event the air of a parade. [4]

At the age of forty-five, Boetticher took a commission in the Sixty-Eighth New York Volunteer Regiment of Infantry and fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. He was captured in March 1862 and sent to the Confederate Army prison in Salisbury, North Carolina. Later that year, he was exchanged for a Confederate officer and returned to his unit. Although he was recognized for his military service in 1865, little is known of his life after the war. [5]

Notes:

[1] Maxim Karolik and Martha Karolik, M. & M. Karolik Collection of American Water Colors and Drawings (Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts, 1962), 84.

[2] George C. Groce and David H. Wallace, The New-York Historical Society’s Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564–1860 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957), 59.

[3] Harry T. Peters, America On Stone: The Other Printmakers to the American People (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, and Co., Inc., 1931), 100.

[4] Natalie Spassky, American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art vol. 2 (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in association with Princeton University Press, 1985), 4.

[5] Spassky, American Paintings, 3.