1815-1905 German Adolph von Menzel Gallery His father was the headmaster of a school for girls, and intended to educate his son as a professor; but he would not thwart his taste for art. Left an orphan in 1832, Menzel had to maintain his family. In 1833 Sachse of Berlin published his first work, an album of pen-and-ink drawings reproduced on stone, to illustrate Goethe's little poem, Kunstlers Erdenwallen. He executed lithographs in the same manner to illustrate Denkw??rdigkeiten aus der brandenburgisch-preussischen Geschichte; The Five Senses and The Prayer, as well as diplomas for various corporations and societies. From 1839 to 1842 he produced 400 drawings, largely introducing to Germany the technique of wood engraving, to illustrate the Geschichte Friedrichs des Grossen (History of Frederick the Great) by Franz Kugler. He subsequently brought out Friedrichs der Grossen Armee in ihrer Uniformirung (The Uniforms of the Army under Frederick the Great), Soldaten Friedrichs der Grossen (The Soldiers of Frederick the Great); and finally, by order of the king Frederick William IV, he illustrated the works of Frederick the Great, Illustrationen zu den Werken Friedricks des Grossen (1843-1849). By these works Menzel established his claim to be considered one of the first, if not actually the first, of the illustrators of his day in his own line. Pencil drawing by Menzel, 1891.Meanwhile Menzel had set himself to study unaided the art of painting, and he soon produced a great number and variety of pictures, always showing keen observation and honest workmanship in subjects dealing with the life and achievements of Frederick the Great, and scenes of everyday life, such as In the Tuileries, The Ball Supper, and At Confession. Among the most important of these works are The Forge (1875) and The Market-place at Verona. Invited to paint The Coronation of William I at Koenigsberg, he produced an exact representation of the ceremony without regard to the traditions of official painting. In Germany he received many honors, and was the first painter to be given the Order of the Black Eagle in 1898 which included a title of nobility, becoming von Menzel.  Related Paintings of Adolph von Menzel :. | Kronung Konig Wilhelms I. in Konigsberg im Jahre 1861 | The Artist-s Bedroom in the Ritterstrabe | The Artist-s Sisters | Costume Study of a Seated Woman: The Artist's Sister Emilie | A Paris Day |
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Willem van Mieris
(3 June 1662, Leiden - 26 January 1747, Leiden) was a Dutch painter. He was a son of Frans van Mieris sr. and brother of Jan van Mieris. His works are extremely numerous, being partly imitations of the paternal subjects, or mythological episodes, which Frans habitually avoided. In no case did he come near the excellence of his sire. van Mieris has works in the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as Cheltenham and Derby Museum and Art Gallery
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim
(January 7, 1800, Hanau, Germany - February 26, 1882, Frankfurt am Main) was a German painter who is often regarded as the first Jewish painter of the modern era. His work was informed by his cultural and religious roots at a time when many of his German Jewish contemporaries chose to convert. Oppenheim is considered by the scholar Ismar Schorsch to be in sympathy with the ideals of the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement, because he remained "fair to the present" without denying his past. Oppenheim was born to Orthodox Jewish parents at Hanau, Germany in 1800; he died at Frankfurt am Main in 1882. His niece was the wife of student and fellow painter Benjamin Prins, Rosa Benari. He received his first lessons in painting from Westermayer, in Hanau, and entered the Munich Academy of Arts at the age of seventeen. Later he visited Paris, where Jean-Baptiste Regnault became his teacher, and then went to Rome, where he studied with Bertel Thorwaldsen, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, and Friedrich Overbeck. There he studied the life of the Jewish ghetto and made sketches of the various phases of its domestic and religious life, in preparation for several large canvases which he painted upon his return to Germany. In 1825 he settled at Frankfurt, and shortly after exhibited his painting David Playing Before Saul, to see which a great number of admirers from all parts of Europe visited his studio. In 1832, at the instance of Goethe, Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach conferred upon him the honorary title of professor.
LIPPI, Fra Filippo
Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1406-1469 Filippo Lippi was born in Florence. He took his vows in 1421 in the monastery S. Maria del Carmine, where Masaccio frescoed the Brancacci Chapel in the church (1426-1427). By 1430 Lippi is mentioned in church documents as "painter." Masaccio's influence, as well as Donatello's, can be seen in Lippi's early works, such as the Tarquinia Madonna of 1437 (National Gallery, Rome) and the Annunciation (S. Lorenzo, Florence) and Barbadori Altar (Louvre, Paris), both begun in 1437/1438. However, the severity of Masaccio and Donatello was mitigated by Lippi, who was instrumental in salvaging from the Gothic past the lyrical expressiveness of a linear mode which Masaccio had all but given up for modeling in chiaroscuro. Toward the middle of the 15th century Lippi's pictures became more finely articulated and his surface design more complex. It is probable that he had a large workshop, and the hand of assistants may be observed in the important fresco decoration started in 1452 in the choir chapel of the Prato Cathedral. After delays and strong protests this commission was finally completed in 1466. The cycle, a highly important monument of Early Renaissance painting, demonstrates Lippi's increasingly more mature style, revealing him to be witty, original, and well versed in all the artistic accomplishments of his time, to which he himself contributed. Through linear perspective Lippi was able to render a convincing illusion of recession and plausible three-dimensional figures. He knew how to express emotions, and he was a keen observer of nature. Lippi painted astonishing portrait likenesses and combined figures and space with an animated surface rhythm, the best example of which can be seen in the Feast of Herod, one of the last scenes in the Prato cycle. During his stay at Prato he was the cause of a scandal (later resolved by papal indulgence): he ran off with a nun, Lucrezia Buti, who bore him two children, one of whom, Filippino Lippi (ca. 1457-1504), was also a painter. In the Prato frescoes as well as in his contemporary panel pictures, such as the Madonna with Two Angels (Uffizi Gallery, Florence), or in the exquisite tondo of the Madonna (Pitti Palace, Florence), Filippo Lippi anticipated later developments in 15th-century painting. In these pictures are to be found the sources of Sandro Botticelli, Lippi's most illustrious pupil. Lippi's innovations extended also to iconography. In his quest for realism he introduced the "bourgeoise" Madonna: the type of contemporary Florentine lady elegantly dressed in the fashion of the time with the hair on her forehead plucked to stress the height of it. He also introduced the subject of the Madonna adoring the Child in the woods (Museum of Berlin, and Uffizi, Florence).