Karl Wilhelm Gotzloff

Karl Wilhelm Götzolff was born in Dresden in 1799. He trained at the Academy in his city between 1814 and 1820, when he exhibited some of his works at the Academy Exhibition, winning first prize and obtaining a scholarship that allowed him to perfect his skills outside Dresden.
He left his hometown, first to study in Switzerland and then to finally arrive in Italy. He settled for a time in Rome in 1822, using the city as a base to visit nearby Tivoli, the Roman countryside, and Frascati, but above all to make contact with the community of Nordic artists in Rome.
He met painters such as the purist Anton Koch and, above all, Baron Uwkull-Gylleband. With the latter and thanks to his financial support, Götzloff made an important trip to Italy. First, he went to Naples, where he stayed for a few days, and then embarked for Sicily.
During these years, he produced numerous studies and watercolours, anticipating the paintings he would produce in the mid-1820s and 1830s. In 1826, after this long journey with the baron, who became his main collector and patron, he settled in Naples. He took up residence in the Vasto alleyway and immediately came into contact with representatives of the Posillipo School.
First he met Antoon Smick van Pitloo, then Giacinto Gigante and Teodoro Duclere, becoming a member of the Posillipo School himself. During this period, he produced a series of views and landscapes dedicated to the Gulf of Naples, characterised by great luminosity and the classic features of the first landscapes painted from life in the Neapolitan area.
Vesuvius was often the subject of his paintings, as requested by his patrons and especially by Leopold of Saxony, in whose service he had been since 1827. In 1835, he was appointed court painter by Ferdinand II of Bourbon and, in the same year, after a trip to his native Dresden, he was appointed a member of the Royal Academy.
Also in the mid-1830s, he married in Dresden but moved with his wife to Naples. In 1848, to escape the revolutionary uprisings, he moved with his wife and three children to the Sorrento peninsula, where he continued to paint. However, it was during this period that his decline began, not only financially but also in terms of his family life.
In the 1850s, he first lost his son Hugo, then his wife, and later another son was kidnapped by brigands. Unable to support himself solely through the sale of his works, he began to be forgotten in the 1860s and died almost destitute in Naples in 1866, after trying unsuccessfully to return permanently to his homeland.