Caspar Jele (Austrian, 1814–1893)
Caspar Jele , also Kaspar Jele was an Austrian painter and one of the most important representatives of the Nazarenes in Tyrol.
Caspar Jele was born as a farmer's son in the hamlet of Freitzberg above Ried in the Oberinntal in simple circumstances. Since his artistic talent was shown at school, he became an apprentice to the peasant painter Hieronymus Schatz at the age of twelve . On the mediation of Josef Duile, who saw a picture of Jele during a visit to Ried, he came to Gebhard Flatz in Innsbruck as a pupil in 1831. From 1834 to 1838, thanks to a state scholarship, he attended the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied with Johann Ender and Josef Redl the Younger, among others. He was particularly influenced by Leopold Kupelwieser and Joseph von Führich.
From 1856 to 1884 he was a drawing teacher at the Realschule Innsbruck, from 1864 to 1876 he also taught at the trade school associated with it. In his spare time he worked as a painter. In addition to portraits, genre pictures and drafts for glass paintings, he mainly created religious pictures in the style of the Nazarenes, including altar leaves for 26 churches in Tyrol, but also those in Vorarlberg, Salzburg, Upper Austria, Carinthia and the USA. He received orders for portraits from several members of the imperial family, including the empresses Karolina Augusta and Maria Anna. On the occasion of his retirement, he was awarded the Golden Cross of Merit with the Crown in 1884 .
On April 21, 1839 Caspar Jele married Anna Kretschmer from Fulnek in Vienna . The couple had 8 children, including the art historian Albert Jele (1844–1900), who became director of the Tyrolean glass painting establishment in 1874 .