Joseph Anton Koch (1768 – 1839)

• Was an Austrian painter of Neoclassicism and later the German Romantic movement.
• The Tyrolese painter was born in Elbigenalp.
• Early in his life he was tending cattle.
• Through the recommendation of Bishop Umgelder, he received academic training in the Karlsschule Stuttgart, a strict military academy.
• In 1791, he ran away, and traveled through France and Switzerland.
• He arrived in Rome in 1795.
• Koch was close to the painter Asmus Jacob Carstens and carried on Carstens' "heroic" art, at first in a literal manner.
• After 1800, Koch developed as a landscape painter.
• Koch's last years were spent in great poverty.
• He died in Rome, where he was buried in the Teutonic Cemetery, located next to St. Peter's Basilica within Vatican City.
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