Wilhelm von Kügelgen is remembered for work the next generation could not ignore.
The record lists Wilhelm von Kügelgen as German artist (1802-1867).
Wilhelm von Kügelgen was born at Saint Petersburg in 1802. His recorded nationality is Duchy of Anhalt.
The nineteenth century broke the academy's authority: independent exhibitions, dealers and the beginnings of modernism.
He worked as painter, writer and chess player.
A painting outlives the argument about it, which is the only durable form of an artistic reputation.
That the work was made in Duchy of Anhalt shaped it: artistic traditions, academies and the galleries that decide what is seen have never been evenly distributed.
Wilhelm von Kügelgen died in 1867, aged 65. The work remains, hanging in collections that outlived both the artist and the market that first priced it.
