Felix Moscheles

{{short description|English painter}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Felix Moscheles

| image = Portrait of Felix Moscheles.jpg

| alt = Felix Moscheles

| caption = Portrait of Felix Moscheles

| birth_name = Felix Stone Moscheles

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1833|02|08|df=y}}

| birth_place = London, England

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1917|12|22|1833|02|08|df=y}}

| death_place = Royal Tunbridge Wells, England

| known_for = painting

| spouse = Margaret Moscheles

| father = Ignaz Moscheles

}}

File:Felix and Margaret Moscheles.png

Felix Stone Moscheles (8 February 1833 – 22 December 1917) was an English painter, writer, peace activist and advocate of Esperanto. He frequently painted genre scenes and portraits.

Biography

Born on 8 February 1833 in London to a German Jewish family,{{Cite book|title=Moscheles, Felix|publisher=Oxford University Press|work= Benezit Dictionary of Art|year=2011|doi=10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.b00126346}}{{Cite web|last=Alihusain|first=C.|title=Remembering Felix Moscheles (1833-1917) {{!}} Peace Palace Library|url=https://www.peacepalacelibrary.nl/2018/01/remembering-felix-moscheles-1833-1917/|access-date=2020-08-26|language=en-US}} Felix Moscheles was the son of the well-known pianist and music teacher Ignaz Moscheles. The family settled in London during the early 1800s, where his father taught at the Royal Philharmonic Society. The family converted to Christianity after the move to England.{{Cite book|last=Kroll|first=Mark|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MBQABQAAQBAJ|title=Ignaz Moscheles and the Changing World of Musical Europe|publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd|year=2014|isbn=9781843839354|location=|pages=333–334}}

His godfather, after whom he was named, was the composer Felix Mendelssohn, who had been a pupil of his father. In the 1840s, Mendelssohn founded Leipzig Conservatory and Moscheles' father took on a teaching post there. Felix attended the St. Thomas School and went on to study art.

He married painter Margaret Moscheles (née Sobernheim) in 1875 in Germany.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Moscheles Margaret 1854-1927|url=https://www.artbiogs.co.uk/1/artists/moscheles-margaret|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-08-26|website=Artist Biographies UK}} Together they spent the winter of 1893 in traveling in North Africa, which inspired a body of artwork.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=26 June 1893|title=Our London Correspondence|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/409249096/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-08-26|website=Newspapers.com|publisher=Glasgow Herald|page=7|language=en}} His paintings were exhibited in Paris, Antwerp and London. Felix Moscheles studied painting with Jozef Van Lerius.

In 1894, Moscheles returned to London, where he built a studio in Chelsea.{{cite web |title=Settlement and building: Artists and Chelsea Pages 102-106 A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 12, Chelsea. |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol12/pp102-106 |website=British History Online |publisher=Victoria County History, 2004 |access-date=21 December 2022}}

In 1903 Felix Moscheles became the first president of the London Esperanto Club. He was a pacifist and internationalist, and as such also served as president of the International Arbitration and Peace Association. He was involved in attempts to develop international dispute resolution protocols at the Hague.Sandi E. Cooper, Patriotic pacifism: waging war on war in Europe, 1815-1914, Oxford University Press, 1991, p.103

He died on 22 December 1917 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England.

Publications

  • "Patriotism as an Incentive to Warfare" (1870; Wertheimer, London)[https://books.google.com/books?id=yUkFAAAAQAAJ&dq=%22Patriotism+as+an+Incentive+to+Warfare%22&pg=PA189 "Patriotism as an Incentive to Warfare" (March 1, 1883) The Herald of Peace and International Arbitration], The Peace Society, London
  • In Bohemia with Du Maurier. The first of a series of reminiscences. With 63 original drawings by G. Du Maurier, illustrating the artist's life in the fifties (1896; T. F. Unwin, London)[https://books.google.com/books?id=7LoEAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Felix+Moscheles%22 Felix Moscheles (1897) In Bohemia with Du Maurier], T. Fisher Unwin, London (Google eBook)
  • Fragments of an Autobiography (1899; James Nisbet, London)[https://books.google.com/books?id=tMsIAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Felix+Moscheles%22 Felix Moscheles (1899) Fragments of an Autobiography], Harper & Bros., New York and London (Google eBook)

Notes

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