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Last updated: 1/25/2017

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19th-Century Drawings

19th-Century Landscape Drawings I / 19th-Century LandscapeDrawings II / 19th-Century Genre: Places

19th-Century Portraits / 19th-Century Genre: People

Felix O. C. Darley / Lothar Meggendorfer / Adrian Ludwig Richter

Richter, one of the most beloved artists in Germany during most of the nineteenth century, was the son and the pupil of Carl August Richter, Professor at the Fine Arts Academy in Dresden. Adrian Ludwig worked under his direction for his first twelve years. In 1820 while traveling as part of his artistic studies (sponsored by Prince Narischkin) he visited Strasbourg and the Midi in France. In 1823, he took another trip, this time to Italy, where he based himself in Rome and traveled to Naples and the surrounding area. From this trip, numerous works were generated including The Valley of the Amalfi. In 1836, he was named Professor of Landscape and Animal Painting at the Dresden Academy. After another trip to Italy, he decided to dedicate himself to works on the German landscape and people. In 1853 he was made an honorary member of the Munich Academy and in 1874 of the Berlin Academy. He was awarded Gold Medals at the Salons in Paris (1855) and Vienna (1883). He also engraved many landscapes and genre scenes, many of which were made into woodcuts and used for illustrations for popular books and children's books. Between 1987 and 2000, 167 of his works were put up for auction. The high price for one of his small watercolors was $22,220 (Sotheby's Munich). To understand the popular culture of Germany in the 19th century, when Germany was emerging as a nation under the leadership of Prussia and becoming the foremost industrial and military power in central Europe, some knowledge of Richter's works, with their idealization of the landscape and popular literature of a simpler German past, is clearly essential.

Select Bibliography: Franz Bauer, Ludwig Richter. Ein deutscher Malerpoet. Nach einer Betrachtung von H. Holland und Ludwig Richters Lebenserinnerungen (Frankfurt am Main: Bertelsmann Lesering, 1960); C. G. Boerner. Sammlung Dr. Theodor Engelmann, Basel. Das Werk Adrian Ludwig Richters. Aquarelle und Handzeichnungen, Radierungen, Holzschnitte und Lithographien, illustrierte Bucher (Leipzig, 1928); Karl Budde, Ludwig Richters Volkskunst. Sein Holzschnitt vom Keim bis zur Blatte (Leipzig:Georg Wigand, n.d.); Wilhelm Fraenke, ed., Ludwig Richters Zeichnungen. Mit einer Einleitung (Leipzig/ Berlin: Grethlein & Co., n.d.); Lothar Kempe, Ludwig Richter: Ein Maler Des Deutschen Boltes (Dresden: Sachsenverlag, 1955); V. Paul Mohn, Ludwig Richter. Kunstler-Monographien. 14 (Bielefeld/ Leipzig: Velhagen & Klasing, 1896); Adrian Ludwig Richter, Aus der Dichtung und Sage. Ernst und Scherz. In Holzschnitten nach Originalzeichnungen von Ludwig Richter. Hrsg. von Georg Scherer (Leipzig: Alphons Dorr, 1878); Adrian Ludwig Richter, Illustrated by the Author, Das Schonste von Ludwig Richter (Herrsching: Edition Albatros - Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft, 1989).