Anton Graff

(b Winterthur, 18 Nov 1736; d Dresden, 22 June 1813). Swiss painter, active in Germany. He was a pupil of Johann Ulrich Schellenburg (1709-95) in Winterthur and continued his training with Johann Jakob Haid in Augsburg between 1756 and 1765. He worked for the court painter Leonhard Schneider (1716-62) in Ansbach from 1757 to 1759, producing large numbers of copies of a portrait of Frederick the Great (probably by Antoine Pesne). This was an important step in furthering his career, as were the months he spent in Regensburg (1764-5) painting miniatures of clerics and town councillors. He was court painter to the Elector Frederick-Christian of Saxe-Weimar in Dresden from 1766 and taught at the Hochschule der Bildende K?nste there. In 1771 he travelled to Berlin, where he painted portraits of Jakob Mendelssohn, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and J. G. Sulzer. Sulzer introduced him at court, which resulted in many commissions. He was invited several times to teach at the Akademie der K?nste in Berlin, but he remained in Dresden. He often travelled to Leipzig, and in summer he frequently went to Teplitz (now Teplice, Czech Republic) and Karlsbad (now Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic); he also worked in Berlin on several occasions and returned to Switzerland for visits.

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Graff, Anton (Winterthur, 1736-1813, Dresden), a successful 18th-c. portrait painter, was principally active in Dresden, where he held a teaching appointment at the Akademie. More than 1, 500 portraits by him are known, and his sitters included many of the great names of his age. His well-known portrait of Schiller was begun in 1786 but not completed until 1791.

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Self-portrait, 1813.

Anton Graff (November 18, 1736 – June 22, 1813) was an eminent Swiss portrait artist. Among his famous subjects were Friedrich Schiller, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Heinrich von Kleist and Fredrick the Great.

Graff was born as the son of a craftsman in Winterthur. There and in Augsburg he learned to paint. In 1766 he was appointed a painter and lecturer at the Dresden Art Academy. In his later years he turned to painting landscapes. He died in Dresden at the age of 76.

Graff was one of the most important painters of his time. Some 2,000 of his works survive. Many are displayed at the Goethe Museum in Frankfurt and at the Städtische Galerie in Dresden.

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