Wilhelm von Kaulbach is remembered for work the next generation could not ignore.
The record lists Wilhelm von Kaulbach as German painter (1805-1874).
Wilhelm von Kaulbach was born at Bad Arolsen in 1805. His recorded nationality is Principality of Waldeck.
The nineteenth century broke the academy's authority: independent exhibitions, dealers and the beginnings of modernism.
He worked as painter, university teacher and illustrator.
A painting outlives the argument about it, which is the only durable form of an artistic reputation.
That the work was made in Principality of Waldeck shaped it: artistic traditions, academies and the galleries that decide what is seen have never been evenly distributed.
Wilhelm von Kaulbach died in 1874, aged 69. The work remains, hanging in collections that outlived both the artist and the market that first priced it.
