Wilhelm von Kaulbach

* 15.10.1805 in Arolsen; ✝ 07.04.1874 in Munich

Painter, Director of Fine Arts Academy Munich

Biography

Wilhelm von Kaulbach studied from 1822 onwards under Peter von Cornelius at the Dusseldorf Academy and then followed him to Munich, where he worked on the frescos in the Odeon, in the court arcades and also in the Herzog-Max-Palais. Although he possessed a considerable talent for landscape painting, he remained true to monumental painting and painted in 1834-37 the battle of the Huns, which proved to be the foundation of his fame.  He was then appointed court painter by King Ludwig I. After illustrating Goethe’s Reineke Fuchs he soon received further commissions as illustrator of works from world literature and helped to make the poetry of Goethe, Schiller, Homer, Shakespeare, Herder, Klopstock and Heine popular among the educated middle classes, not to mention the operas of Wagner. 

In regards to Shakespeare von Kaulbach did a series of illustrations called Shakespeare Gallerie in Kupferstichen (Shakespeare Gallery in Engravings) from 1855 to 1857. The engravings illustrated scenes from Macbeth, Julius Caesar, The Tempest und King John. Several years later he also worked on a Shakespeare-Album in photographischen Ablichtungen (Shakespeare Album in Photographic Pictures). From 1849 Kaulbach directed in addition the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.

• Hunnenschlacht (1837)
• Wilhelm von Kaulbachs Shakespeare-Gallerie (1855-1857)
• Shakespeare-Album in photographischen Ablichtungen (ca. 1860)

Literature

Secondary Literature

• Lehmann, Evelyn/Riemer, Elke: Die Kaulbachs. Arolsen, 1978.
• Ostini, Fritz von: Wilhelm von Kaulbach. Bielefeld, 1906.

Album pages with this person

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