Carl Werner Weimar (1808 - 1894)

Carl Werner was a pupil at the Leipzig Academy of Schnorr von Carolsfeld, a history painter linked with the Nazarene group of artists. In 1829, he went on to study architecture in Munich, but returned to painting two years later. Having won a travelling scholarship, he went to Italy, where he lived for nearly twenty years. Werner became known as one of the leading European watercolourists, and established a teaching atelier in Venice. Besides his frequent trips to England, he toured Spain in 1856-57, followed by an extensive journey to Egypt and Palestine between 1862 and 1864. His Carl Werner's Nile Sketches, published in 1875, contained watercolours done during that time. He made some splendid watercolours in Jerusalem, particularly of the Dome of the Rock. He painted the outside of the sanctuary from nearby, unlike most travellers, who showed it from a distance, as part of a general view of Jerusalem. He was also able to paint the inside, a rare event, for this sacred shrine had always been diffcult of access to non-Muslims. A member of the Venice and Leipzig Academies (he became a professor at the latter institution), Werner showed his work in Italy, Germany and England, particularly at the New Watercolour Society in London. His pictures, which included such titles as View of Beirut, Isle of Philae, Mosque at Damascus, The Jordan near Jericho and Gate of Justice at Cairo, are to be found in many European museums. Werner made further trips, to Greece and Sicily and in 1891, at the age of eighty-three, he returned to Rome and then to Leipzig, where he died.