Karl Philipp Fohr

Karl Philipp Fohr, a brother of Daniel Fohr, was born at Heidelberg in 1795. He started his studies of painting with Friedrich Rottmann, and was largely self-taught. In 1810 he was discovered by the painter Georg Wilhelm Issel, who invited him to Darmstadt in 1811. There Johann Philipp Dieffenbach introduced him to Grand Dutchess Wilhelmine of Hessen, who acted as a patron and placed small orders from him.

Portrait of Fohr by Carl Barth, c. 1817

Later he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he became friends with fellow student Ludwig Sigismun Ruhl, from whom he learned painting in oil. Fohr dropped out of the Academy to travel on foot to northern Italy, and arrived in Rome in 1816.[1] He briefly joined the circle of the Nazarenes, but increasingly developed his own style. In Rome, he shared a studio with the landscape painter Joseph Anton Koch, whose paintings influenced Fohr's style.

One of Fohr's most important works is the design for a group portrait of German artists in Rome at the Café Greco.

On 29 June 1818 Fohr drownd whilst bathing in the river Tiber with his friends Carl Barth, Johann Anton Ramboux, and Samuel Amsler. To raise funds for a monument in his memory, they created a print after a drawing of Fohr by Barth. Samuel Amsler produced the print, as Barth was too distressed to make the print himself.