Ludwig Richter

Ludwig Richter , 1803-84, German painter, illustrator, and etcher; son and pupil of the engraver Karl Richter (1770-1848). His characteristic paintings combine figure and landscape, as in Bridal Procession in Springtime. Richter made approximately 240 etchings, including scenes in Saxony and Rome, and over 1,000 drawings for woodcuts, including illustrations for Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, Schiller's poem "Song of the Bell," and many German fairy tales. They are executed in a simple, often humorous manner.

Richter, Ludwig (b Dresden, 28 Sept. 1803; d Dresden, 19 June 1884). German painter, printmaker, and illustrator. Richter is usually regarded as one of the leading figures of late Romanticism in Germany, alongside Moritz von Schwind, but his work has a modest, intimate quality that also relates it to Biedermeier. He spent most of his career in Dresden (where he was a professor at the Academy), but in 1823–6 he lived in Rome, where he was in close touch with the Nazarenes and studied with the landscape painter Joseph Anton Koch. In his paintings as well as his illustrations—often for children's books—his favourite subjects included the pleasures of the countryside, fairy tales, and the more idyllic incidents of sacred and legendary art. His autobiography, Lebenserinnerungen eines deutschen Malers (Memoirs of a German Painter, 1885), is not only a charming piece of writing but also an important source for the artistic ideas of his time.