Spera, fide DEO coronabit laurea finem! Symb[olum]. Ubi bene ibi Patria. * London 1718/19 Feb. 1. When this you see remember mee. Your moste affectionate friend and faithfull Servant. Tobias Stranovius.  * The source of the motto is Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes 5.108, quoting from Pacuvius and Aristophanes: “Patria est, ubicumque est bene” The same is quoted in Proverbiae Senecae 43. (“Non eris in patria: patria est ubicumque bene est. Illud enim, per quod bene est, non in loco, sed in homine est.”) For another version of the same motto, cf. the note of Michael Theophil Bauer on p. 95.

p. 91. London, 1719 február 12

Stranover, Tobias
(1684-1756), Transylvanian Saxon painter in England

Tobias Stranover (Stranovius) was born in Nagyszeben (Sibiu) in 1684, a son of the local painter Jeremias Stranover (?-1702). His elder brother, Jeremias Stranover (?-?) was also a painter in Nagyszeben, just like his father-in-law, Jakab Bogdány (c. 1660-1724). He was baptized on October 7. He learned with his father-in-law in London, then he worked in the Netherlands, Hamburg, Dresden, Nagyszeben and London. He died on February 26, 1756, most probably in London. He painted very popular still lives of fruits and animals in the style of his father-in-law. His works are kept in the Kunsthalle of Hamburg, the Landesmuseum of Schwerin, and several other German collections, as well as the Brukenthal Museum of Nagyszeben. Two of his paintings can be seen in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.

From a letter written by Ferenc Pápai Páriz Jr. to Sándor Teleki from London on September 25, 1715 we know that Tobias Stranovius had arrived to England in the company of the Constantinopolitan English Ambassador William Paget, when this latter had travelled through Transylvania thirteen years earlier, that is in 1702 [Jankovics 147, Peregrinus 59]. Pápai Páriz adds to this that Stranovius “already excels amongst painters”, and the motto of this latter written in 1719 in the Album also indicates his being well off in his new fatherland. His dedication is the only note in English in the Album. The above mentioned travel of Paget is also described in the diary of Edmund Chishull (1671-1733) which was published in 1747 in London with the title Travels in Turkey and back to England [Gömöri: Angol utazó]. (Chishull also mentions his conversation with Professor Sámuel Kaposi in Gyulafehérvár/Alba Iulia.)

According to most lexicons Tobias Stranovius died after 1724, while others suppose him to have died after 1731. However, he is mentioned as being in life in 1733 by his brother-in-law William Bogdani. On p. 396 of vol. 25 (1756) of the London Magazine a laudatory poem dedicated to him mentions the exact date of his death: February 26, 1756 [Gömöri: Lord Paget].

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