John Christian Rauschner

{{short description|American sculptor}}

John Christian Rauschner (born c. 1760) was a German artist who specialized in portraits made of wax.His name appears in contemporary and later sources in variety of spellings, presumably all referring to the same artist: John Christian Rauchner, Johann Christian Rauschner, John C. Rauschner, J.C. Rauschner; John Christopher Rauschner, Johann Christoph Rauschner. He worked for some time in the United States, travelling to Boston,"John C. Rauschner, artist in wax, 2 Winter Street." Boston Directory. 1807, 1810His son, portrait artist Henry Rauschner, had a "shop" in Boston ca.1809-1810. Henry died in 1812 while serving in the U.S. Army in South Carolina. cf. "Henry Rauschner, artist in wax, 3 Winter Street;" Boston Directory 1809. Independent Chronicle (Boston) 03-12-1810. "Deaths," The Pilot (Boston), Nov. 27, 1812 New York City,"Nature imitated. John Christopher Rauschner, artist. Member of the Imperial Academy of Sculpture at Vienna." Commercial Advertiser (NY), 01-02-1799 PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia Directory. 1811{{Citation |publisher = L. H. Everts & Co. |location = Philadelphia, Pa |author = J. Thomas Scharf |title = History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884 |date = 1884 |ol = 13503130M }} and elsewhere.{{Citation |publisher = Little, Brown, and company |location = Boston |title = Social life in old New England |author = Mary Caroline Crawford |date = 1914 |oclc = 475233 |ol = 6570572M }} Examples of Rauschner's artwork are in the Albany Institute of History & Art;[http://americanhistory.si.edu/documentsgallery/exhibitions/dewitt_4.html Smithsonian] American Antiquarian Society;[http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Inventories/Portraits/bios/114.pdf American Antiquarian Society] Bostonian Society; Fruitlands Museum;{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20120415052108/http://www.fruitlands.org/gallery-collection?page=20 Fruitlands Museum]}} Historic New England; Massachusetts Historical Society; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;[http://www.mfa.org/search/collections?keyword=rauschner MFA Boston] New York Historical Society;[http://emuseum.nyhistory.org:8080/emuseum/ NY Historical Society] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120112130255/http://emuseum.nyhistory.org:8080/emuseum/ |date=2012-01-12 }} Peabody Essex Museum;{{Citation |publisher = Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America |location = Boston |author = Ethel Stanwood Bolton |title = Wax portraits and silhouettes |date = 1915 |ol = 7029721M }}{{Citation |publisher = C.E. Goodspeed & Co. |location = Boston |title = History of the rise and progress of the arts of design in the United States |author = William Dunlap |edition = A history of the rise and progress of the arts of design in the United States |date = 1918 |oclc = 3449403 |ol = 7082485M }} Philadelphia Museum of Art; West Point Museum; the White House, Washington DC; and Winterthur Museum.Anita Schorsch. "A Key to the Kingdom: The Iconography of a Mourning Picture." Winterthur Portfolio, Spring, 1979, vol.14, no.1