Wilhelm von Kaulbach

Born. 15.10.1805 in Aroisen
Died. 07.04.1874 in München

German painter, illustrator of history and literature

About the artist

Wilhelm Kaulbach was born on 15 October 1805 in Aroisen. He received his first artistic lessons from his father and studied with his brother Karl at the Düsseldorf Academy from 1822 where he was dismissed for bad conduct. He moved to Munich, where he worked on the various frescoes.

In 1831 he married the Munich merchant’s daughter Josefine Sutner. In 1835, Kaulbach took his first trip to Venice, resulting in numerous drawings and sketches of the Italian landscape. In 1937 he was appointed as court painter by King Ludwig I of Bavaria. From 1845 he spent much of his time in Berlin, where he was commissioned by King Frederick William IV of Prussia to advance and supervise the painting of the staircase of the Neues Museum in Berlin. At the same time, however, he acquired a stately villa in the English Garden in Munich.

In 1849 he was appointed director of the Munich Art Academy and was also a member of the academies of Berlin, Dresden, and Brussels. In 1863 he was admitted as a foreign member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and was awarded his Knight title in 1866.

Kaulbach died of cholera on 7 April 1874 in the great Munich epidemic.