Franz Gerhard von Kügelgen (1772 – 1820)
• Was a German painter, noted for his portraits and history paintings.
• He was born at Bacharach am Rhein.
• His twin brother, Karl von Kügelgen, was also a painter.
• After leaving school in 1789, he studied painting in Koblenz.
• Beginning in 1791, he worked in Bonn, where he painted portraits of Elector Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria, minister Ferdinand August von Spiegel zum Desenberg, and the Count of Waldstein.
• In 1800, he married Helene Marie Zoege von Manteuffel; from a noble Baltic-German family.
• They had three children together.
• His first son, Wilhelm, was born in Saint Petersburg in 1802, and also grew up to become a painter.
• He painted portraits of Caspar David Friedrich, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, August von Kotzebue, Friedrich Schiller, Ludwig Uhland, Zacharias Werner, Christoph Martin Wieland, Johann Carl Simon Morgenstern and other writers, artists and scholars of his time.
• Caspar David Friedrich was also a student and friend.
• In 1820, he was killed by a thief while on his way into Dresden from his studio in the suburb of Loschwitz.
• The asteroid 11313 Kügelgen is named after him and his son Wilhelm.
• He was a professor at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and a member of both the Prussian and Russian Imperial Academies of Arts.
