Anton Graff (18 Nov. 1736 – 22 June 1813) was an eminent Swiss portrait artist. Among his famous subjects were Friedrich Schiller, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Heinrich von Kleist, Frederick the Great, Friederike Sophie Seyler, Johann Gottfried Herder, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Moses Mendelssohn and Christian Felix Weisse. His pupils included Emma Körner, Philipp Otto Runge and Karl Ludwig Kaaz. Anton Graff was born as the seventh child of the craftsman Ulrich Graff and Barbara Graff née Koller at Untertorgasse 8 in Winterthur, Switzerland (the house does not exist anymore). In 1753 Graff started studying painting at the art school of Johann Ulrich Schellenberg in Winterthur. After 3 years he left Winterthur for Augsburg. There he worked with the etcher Johann Jakob Haid. However, only one year later he was forced to leave Augsburg. He was too successful. The members of the local painters guild feared his competition.[With a letter of recommendation from Johann Jakob Haid, he moved to Ansbach where he found employment with the court painter Leonhard Schneider until 1759. ....In his early years, Graff did hardly ever paint any background details in his portraits. He usually kept the background monochrome. However, in his later years he also paid more attention to the background. Usually he painted the sitter in outdoor surroundings, as was the fashion at that time in England. The price for a portrait by Graff was calculated by size and details of the sitter's clothes. ...In his later years Graff turned to painting landscapes and developed further a sparkling manner of painting that anticipated Impressionism. Philipp Otto Runge and Caspar David Friedrich got influenced by his work. ....Graff was a prolific artist. He painted some 2,000 paintings and drawings. His paintings, especially the portraits, are much sought-after. Many of them are in museums and private collections in Switzerland, Germany, Russia and Poland. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Graff) undefined

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