Carl Wagner

Carl Wagner (1796–1867), a German landscape painter trained at the Dresden Academy, became court painter and gallery inspector in Meiningen in 1825. Travels in Tyrol and Switzerland developed his Alpine repertoire. A pupil of Johan Christian Dahl, he visited Italy from 1822 to 1825; the Thorvaldsens Museum archive records a letter of recommendation from his teacher.

Hohensalzburg, at Salzburg’s Residenzgalerie, combines watercolour with pencil drawing. One annotation describes clouds in long lines, while another locates the viewpoint on the Kapuzinerberg. The Castle of Bürglen with the Alps Beyond (1862), at the National Gallery of Art, brings together watercolour and black chalk on wove paper. Colour notes remain within the image, documenting the observational work accompanying the construction of the landscape.

Works recorded at auction