Richter, Ludwig (Adrian Richter) (1803–84). A phenomenally popular 19th‐century German illustrator of Bechstein's fairy tales, Richter's illustrations were sought for other fairy tale collections and were later borrowed for the Grimms' Tales. From the age of 12 Richter learned draftsmanship in his father's copperplate engraving workshop. At 17 his precocious artistic accomplishment won him a position recording the French journeys of a Russian prince. Sent subsequently by a Dresden patron to Italy for three years (1823–6), he joined the German community of artists in Rome, which included the influential Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Called the ‘St Luke Brotherhood’ (Lukasbrüder), their work was generally Nazarene in style.
On his return to Germany, Richter instructed aspiring porcelain painters, concentrating on Saxon scenes. In meeting a demand for ‘German’ art, Bechstein's landscapes made his reputation. Appointment to the professorship of landscape painting at the Dresden Academy of Art (1836) was followed by commissions from the Leipzig publishers Wigand for engravings which culminated in a 21‐volume reprint series of 15th‐ and 16th‐century German chapbooks.
Richter's illustrations for August Musäus's Volksmärchen der Deutschen (Folktales of the Germans, 1842) established his fame, and calls for further fairy‐tale illustrations followed. About his work on Musäus's Tales, Richter wrote that, while he worked on one scene, he imagined three more and regretted having to lay his pencil down at evening. His fertile imagination resulted in 2, 600 woodcuts in nearly 150 books during his professional career. By his own account, the influence of Albrecht Dürer, which is everywhere apparent in his most fully realized cityscapes, loomed large in his artistic development.
Richter's best‐known illustrations were undoubtedly those for the fairy tales of Ludwig Bechstein. Reused in poster editions of Bechstein's fairy tales and pirated for editions of Grimms' tales, they contributed lastingly to German visual culture.
Bibliography
- Hand, Joachim Neidhardt, Ludwig Richter (1969).
- Stubbe, W. (ed.), Das Ludwig Richter Album: Sämtliche Holzschnitte (1971).
— Ruth B. Bottigheimer
