Adolph von Menzel

Kingdom of Prussia·1815-1905

Adolph von Menzel established himself as one of nineteenth-century Germany's most commanding artists through meticulous draftsmanship and unflinching realism. Born in Wrocław in 1815, he took over his father's lithographic business at sixteen and became celebrated above all for his illustrations of Frederick the Great—four hundred drawings introducing wood-engraving to Germany and establishing him as a master of his craft. His paintings, from intimate domestic scenes to the monumental *Iron Rolling Mill*, demonstrated the same precision and honest observation. Though compared to a proto-Impressionist by later critics, Menzel was a draftsman first: Edgar Degas called him "the greatest living master." His work remained largely in Germany during his lifetime, acquired by Berlin museums as quickly as it appeared. Knighted in 1898, he spent nearly his entire career in Berlin, dying there in 1905 to a state funeral directed by the Kaiser.