Battle of Manilla Bay Panorama Painting
During the 1880’s, Milwaukee became the American home of a popular artistic movement then flourishing in Europe, panorama painting. Chicago promoter William Wehner was determined to going into the panorama business and recruited 20 artists from Germany to work in Milwaukee.
Among the artists recruited were Frederick Wilhelm Heine, George Peter, and Franz Rohrbeck, as well as countless others. During the decade, two panorama companies competed in Milwaukee, creating monumental depictions of The Crucifixion, The Battle of Atlanta, and Gettysburg.
By 1890, however, the movement declined in popularity, and the painters turned to teaching and creating smaller works for individual clients.
Following the Spanish-American War of 1898, Wehner made one last effort to revive panoramas. Heine, Rohrbeck, and Peter went to San Francisco where they worked for six months on The Battle of Manilla Bay, for which the study at the Milwaukee County Historical society served as a maquette, or scale model of the original.
The maquette was donated to the Historical Society by family members of William Wehner and put on permanent exhibit shortly after the Historical Society occupied its current headquarters in 1967. Efforts are being made to once again exhibit it on a grand scale for the Society’s members and the greater Milwaukee community.
