Johann Karl Bähr

Bähr was born in Riga on 18 August 1801.[1] He studied under Matthaei in Dresden[2] and completed his art education with a visit to Italy in 1827–29.[1] He married in Dresden, then spent some time back in Riga, before settling permanently in Dresden in 1832.[1] He was made a Professor at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1840.[2] Enthusiastic about poetry, he moved in the circle of Ludwig Tieck in Dresden, and was a close friend of Julius Mosen.[1]

Bähr was in demand as a portraitist, and also painted some historical works.[1] He wrote several books: Die Gräber der Liven (1850), a report on some archaeological excavations in Livonia which he undertook in 1846; Lectures on Dante's Divine Comedy (1853); Lectures on the Colour Theories of Newton and Goethe (1863) and The Dynamic Circle (1860–68), a scientific work which occupied him almost exclusively for the last ten years of his life.[1]

Bähr's large collection of Latvian medieval antiquities was purchased by the British Museum in 1852.[3]

He died at Dresden on 29 September 1869.[1]

His paintings include:[2]

• Virgil and Dante.
• The Anabaptists in Münster (lithographed by Hanfstängl, and by Teichgräber).
• Iwan the Cruel, of Russia, warned of his death by a Finnish Magician (signed and dated 1850); in the Dresden Galiery.
• Christ and St. Thomas (at Kiev).
• Christ on the Cross (at Zschopau),
• Portrait of Julius Mosen (lithographed by Hanfstängl).

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Attribution:

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bryan, Michael (1886). "Baehr, Johann Karl". In Graves, Robert Edmund (ed.). Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (A–K). I (3rd ed.). London: George Bell & Sons.