Peter von Cornelius

* 23.09.1783 in Dusseldorf; ✝ 06.03.1867 in Munich

Painter, Director of the Fine Arts Academy in Dusseldorf and Munich

Biography

Peter Cornelius was born into an artist family, the son of a painter and teacher at the Dusseldorf Fine Arts Academy – where as a child he used to wander among the collection of classical antiquities associated with that institution. After his first period at the Dusseldorf Academy, lasting until 1809, and after he had been guest for a while in the home of a patron, Cornelius moved to Rome in 1811, where he came into contact with the painter Friedrich Oberbeck and was accepted into the circle of the Nazarenes. In Rome he decorated, inter alia, the Zucchari Palace with frescos depicting scenes from the story of Joseph in Egypt. In 1819 Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria summoned Cornelius to Munich, where he reorganized the Glyptothek. In Germany, in addition to all this, he administered in turn the Dusseldorf and Munich Academies of Fine Arts and became one of the most celebrated German historical painters of the modern period.  He was regaled during his lifetime with numerous honours, such as the Pour le Mérite for art and science and the title of Master of the Freies Deutsches Hochstift.

• Faust. 12 pen and ink drawings (1810-15)
• Die Götter Griechenlands in der Glyptothek. Frescoes (1820–30)
• Das Jüngste Gericht. Altar fresco (1836–40)
• Propheten des Alten Testaments. Medallion paintings, St. Nikolaikirche, Potsdam (1850)

Literature

Secondary Literature

• Kuhn, Alfred: Peter Cornelius und die geistigen Strömungen seiner Zeit. Mit den Briefen des Meisters an Ludwig I. von Bayern und an Goethe. Berlin, 1921.
• Krempel, Léon / Niklaus, Anthea (eds.): Cornelius – Prometheus – Der Vordenker. Munich, 2005.
• Riegel, Herman: Cornelius, der Meister der deutschen Malerei. Hanover, 1866.

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