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Carl Spitzweg
Spitzweg was born 1808, he has one older and one younger
brother. He trained to become a Pharmacist and gained his
qualification in Munich. After falling ill himself, he took up painting.
Spitzweg was a self taught painter, who learnt by copying Flemish
masters. During the Biedermeier era his German Romantic works
were seen to be among the most important. His work commonly
portrayed Middle-class people engaging in their hobbies. Later in
life he travelled around Europe to further his painting style by
copying more masters of art.
During the 1930’s art forgeries where plentiful and
Carl Spitzweg was imitated many times. An artist
called Toni used to copy his work and sign them with
his own name and saying after Spitzweg. This made
it easy for forgers to erase this writing, age the
painting and re sell them as an original Spitzweg.
Many of these forgers where however caught and
sentenced up to 10 years in jail.
Newspaper
reader in his
backyard,
1845-58.