Ludwig Knaus

Born in Wiesbaden, Germany in 1829, Ludwig Knaus began his studies under the tutelage of Sohn and Schadow. He was a recognized genre painter and member of the Düsseldorf school, whose compositions favored darkness, heavy color, and meticulous realism. In 1852, Knaus moved to Paris to enroll as a pupil of Thomas Couture, notable for winning the 1837 Prix de Rome; A year later, his seminal Morning after the Kermess received the second gold Medal of the Salon. Knaus took his practice to Berlin in 1861 and went on to create the most celebrated works of his oeuvre, including The Holy Family and The Road to Ruin, both now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His work garnered the gold medal of the Berlin Exhibition in 1861 and the grand medal of honor at the Paris Exposition of 1867. In this more mature period, he painted a series of classical nudes called "Idyls" as well as a cadre of portraits, most notably for German historian Theodor Mommsen and scientist Hermann von Helmholtz. Consistent throughout his work was a tedious dedication to representing the individual character of each of his subjects, achieved through a combination of lifelike color and skillful brushwork. From 1874 to 1883 he assumed a professorship at the Royal Prussian Academy in Berlin, where he was recognized as an Officer of the Legion of Honor and a Knight of the Prussian Order Pour la Mérite before his death in 1910.