1785-1847 German Georg Friedrich Kersting Gallery Kersting was a friend of Caspar David Friedrich, the leading German Romantic painter; his style was influenced by Friedrich, and he shared that artist's romantic attitude, although in a more subjective manner. The two friends went on a walking tour of the Riesengebirge in 1810. During his many hikes with Friedrich, the two painted numerous sketches and observations from nature. He may have painted the staffage in some of Friedrich's early work??such as Morning in the Riesengebirge (1810?C11), a result of their walking tour. He was also a friend of the painter Louise Seidler, who described him as "an altogether splendid and comical fellow" and often served as his model. In 1813 Seidler helped Kersting send a number of his works to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe was impressed and recommended that the Grand Duke Charles Augustus purchase his work The Embroiderer. Kersting's most lasting works are his figures in interiors that borrow from seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting. These paintings nevertheless feel contemporary due to the situations depicted and the effect of the artist's personality. The characters are often viewed from the back, as in Friedrich's work, and the scenes provide hints of narrative as the figures engage privately in everyday activities. A number of his works refer to his time in the volunteer corps, the "L??tzow rangers". He drew a full-length self-portrait in 1813, in which he wore the rangers' uniform. The painting On Sentry Duty (1815) depicts three rangers, including the artist Ferdinand Hartmann and the writer Theodor Körner, who fought with Kersting and died in wars against the French.  Related Paintings of Georg Friedrich Kersting :. | Reader by Lamplight | Paar am Fenster | On Outpost Duty | Portrait of Niccolo Paganini | Bildnis des Buchhandlers |
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Heinrich von Angeli
1840 - 1925 Austrian painter. In 1853 he moved to Vienna to live with his uncle, who was a collector and a friend of the painters Friedrich von Amerling and Mathias Ranftl (1805-54). Angeli's early Self-portrait reflects the precocious maturity of his style, and in 1854 he enrolled at the Akademie der Bildenden K?nste in Vienna. In 1856, on the advice of Amerling, he went to study under Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze in D?sseldorf, where he executed one of his most significant history paintings, Mary Stuart Reading her Death Warrant (1857). In 1859 he moved to Munich, where he worked independently and was encouraged by Karl Theodor von Piloty, producing the history paintings Ludwig XI and Franz de Paula (1859) and Antony and Cleopatra for Ludwig I of Bavaria. In 1862 he again settled in Vienna, where he enjoyed increasing success. The life-size portrait of Baronin Seidler and the genre painting Avengers of Honour (1869), both exhibited at the Weltausstellung in Vienna in 1873, secured his reputation. After brief stays in Paris and Berlin (c. 1866), he went in 1871 to Italy, where he painted numerous portraits and the genre work Absolution Denied. His final genre paintings, Youthful Love (sold London, Sotheby's, 3 Oct 1980) and Calabrian Shepherd Couple, also date from this year. Henceforth he devoted himself entirely to portrait painting, receiving important commissions from such aristocratic circles as the Kinsky and Auersperg families (e.g. Graf Anton Alexander Auersperg, 1876; Vienna, Pr?sidium des Nationalrates). Whereas his early portraits were influenced by Amerling, Anton Einsle and 17th-century Dutch art, from the 1870s he developed his own elegant and restrained style. This helped him to obtain commissions at the courts of Vienna, St Petersburg and London
PEETERS, Clara
Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1594-1657
Alfred Stevens
1823-1906 Alfred Stevens Galleries Flemish Alfred Emile Stevens (May 11, 1823 - August 29, 1906) , Belgian painter, was born in Brussels. El??gants sur les BoulevardsHis father, an old officer in the service of William I of the Netherlands, was passionately fond of pictures, and readily allowed his son to draw in the studio of François Navez, director of the Brussels Academy. In 1844 Stevens went to Paris and worked under the instructing of Camille Roqueplan, a friend of his father's; he also attended the classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where Ingres was then professor. In 1849 he painted at Brussels his first picture, A Soldier in Trouble, and in the same year went back to Paris, where he definitely settled, and exhibited in the Salons. He then painted Ash-Wednesday Morning, Burghers and Country People finding at Daybreak the Body of a Murdered Gentleman, An Artist in Despair, and The Love of Gold. Allegory of the Night MSK, Oostende, BelgiumIn 1855 he exhibited at the Antwerp Salon a little picture called At Home, which showed the painter's bent towards depicting ladies of fashion. At the Great Exhibition in Paris, 1855, his contributions were remarkable, but in 1857 he returned to graceful female subjects, and his path thenceforth was clear before him. At the Great Exhibition of 1867 he was seen in a brilliant variety of works in the manner he had made his own, sending eighteen exquisite paintings; among them were the Lady in Pink (in the Brussels Gallery), Consolation, Every Good Fortune, Miss Fauvette, Ophelia, and India in Paris. At the Paris International Exhibitions of 1878 and 1889, and at the Historical Exhibition of Belgian Art, Brussels, 1880, he exhibited The Four Seasons (in the Palace at Brussels), The Parisian Sphinx, The Japanese Mask, The Japanese Robe, and The Lady-bird (Brussels Gallery). "Alfred Stevens is one of the race of great painters," wrote Camille Lemonnier, "and like them he takes immense pains with the execution of his work." The example of his finished technique was salutary, not merely to his brethren in Belgium, but to many foreign painters who received encouragement from the study of his method. The brother of Alfred Stevens, Joseph Stevens, was a great painter of dogs and dog life. See J. du Jardin, L'Art flamand; Camille Lemonnier, Histoire des beaux arts en Belgique.