Matthias Joseph de Noël
Matthias Joseph de Noël was a German merchant, painter, art collector and writer.
Life
Born in Cologne, de Noël learned drawing after a commercial apprenticeship in his home town with Egidius Mengelberg and Caspar Arnold Grein, as well as oil painting with Benedikt Beckenkamp.After this training, he spent longer periods in Rome and Paris to devote himself entirely to painting.
After his father's death, de Noël returned to Cologne to continue his parents' business.
In 1828, de Noël became curator of Cologne's first municipal museum, the Wallrafianum, later Cologne's Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. There he took over from the curator Johann Jakob Peter Fuchs the care of the legacy of his friend Ferdinand Franz Wallraf bequeathed to the city of Cologne.
His own extensive art collection later became the foundation of the Cologne Kunstgewerbemuseums.
As a writer, he contributed to the renewal of the Cologne Carnival. In addition, he is one of three authors responsible for the art-historical part of the first Cologne city guide from 1828.
de Noël died in Cologne at the age of 66 and was buried in Cologne at the Melaten cemetery.