Simon Meister

Simon Meister (20 December 1796 – 29 February 1844) was a German painter.

Life Meister was born in Koblenz in 1796 as the son of a saddler. He possibly learned his father's trade and received his first private drawing lessons in his home town before going to Paris. There he studied painting with Horace Vernet. After a scholarship from Frederick William III of Prussia expired, Meister returned to Koblenz in 1828, where he married.

During these years he mainly painted portraits of Koblenz citizens. Meister's attempts to obtain commissions from the Prussian king were only partially successful, despite support from Alexander von Humboldt, and his efforts to obtain a position at an academy failed.

Around 1833, he moved with his family to Cologne, where he died in 1844 at the age of 47. Contemporaries suggested that he had a drinking problem in the last years of his life. In the obituary for him, "abdominal inflammation" is given as the cause of death.

Meister's subjects were portraits, battle scenes and animal fights. Many of Meister's paintings were also reproduced as lithographs. He is considered one of the most important Rhenish painters of the Biedermeier period.

His gravesite is at the Melaten Cemetery in Cologne. (Lit. J, zwischen Lit.A+B).

Family Simon Meister's half-brother and his son Ernst Meister were also painters.

Work (selection)

Equestrian portrait from Napoleon Bonaparte, 1826. Self-portrait from 1827 in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud Portrait of (1828). Death of Adolf von Nassau at the Battle of Göllheim, 1829 Die Familie Tillmann, 1832. Napoleon zu Pferde, 1832, Self-portrait with his brother Nikolaus, (1833–1834) , 1836 Portrait of the perfume manufacturer Johann Baptist Farina, 1837 Portrait of the composer Ludwig Spohr Der Rheinübergang der Franzosen bei Neuwied (1797) aus dem Jahr 1841 (with Nikolas Meister) The Battle of Kulm Die Ansicht der Schloss Stolzenfels bei Sonnenuntergang Das Reiterbildniß des Kronprinzen von Preußen, wie er 1834 in Begleitung zweier Generäle von einer in der Nähe von Köln abgehaltenen Parade zurückkehrt Löwenkampf. Portrait of the architect

History of impact From Franz Kellerhoven comes a lithograph after the self-portrait of the painter Simon Meister.

Meister's pupils included .

The writer adapted Meister's life story in the novel Simon im Glück, published in 1949.