Johann Karl Bähr (1801–1869) was a German painter and writer.

Life

Bähr was born in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

on 18 August 1801. He studied under Matthaei in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

and completed his art education with a visit to Italy in 1827–29. He married in Dresden, then spent some time back in Riga, before settling permanently in Dresden in 1832. He was made a Professor at the

Dresden Academy of Fine Arts The Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (German language, German ''Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden''), often abbreviated HfBK Dresden or simply HfBK, is a vocational university of visual arts located in Dresden, Germany. The present institutio ...

in 1840. Enthusiastic about poetry, he moved in the circle of

Ludwig Tieck Johann Ludwig Tieck (; ; 31 May 177328 April 1853) was a German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic. He was one of the founding fathers of the Romanticism, Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Early life Tieck w ...

in Dresden, and was a close friend of Julius Mosen. He then worked again in Riga and finally went to Dresden for good in 1836. Here he taught at the Art Academy from 1840, where he was appointed professor in 1846. Bähr was in demand as a portraitist, and also painted some historical works. He wrote several books: ''Die Gräber der Liven'' (1850), a report on some archaeological excavations in

Livonia Livonia, known in earlier records as Livland, is a historical region on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It is named after the Livonians, who lived on the shores of present-day Latvia. By the end of the 13th century, the name was extende ...

which he undertook in 1846; ''Lectures on Dante's Divine Comedy'' (1853); ''Lectures on the Colour Theories of Newton and Goethe'' (1863) and ''The Dynamic Circle'' (1860–68), a scientific work which occupied him almost exclusively for the last ten years of his life. Bähr's large collection of

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

n medieval antiquities was purchased by the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

in 1852.British Museum Collection
/ref> He died at Dresden on 29 September 1869.

Works

His paintings include:Bryan,1886-9 *''Virgil and Dante''. *''The Anabaptists in Münster'' (lithographed by Hanfstängl, and by Teichgräber). *''Iwan the Cruel, of Russia, warned of his death by a Finnish Magician'' (signed and dated 1850); in the Dresden Galiery. *''Christ and St. Thomas'' (at

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

). *''Christ on the Cross'' (at Zschopau), *''Portrait of Julius Mosen'' (lithographed by Hanfstängl).

References

Sources

Attribution: * 1801 births 1869 deaths 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists German male painters Artists from Riga Baltic-German people from the Russian Empire Academic staff of the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts Emigrants from the Russian Empire {{Germany-painter-stub