Johann Salomon Wahl (1689,

Chemnitz Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt , ) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the 28th largest city of Germany as well as the fourth largest city in the area of former East Germany ...

- 5 December 1765,

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

) was a German artist who became a

court painter A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or princely family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Painters were the most common, but the cour ...

in Denmark.

Biography

He trained as a painter between 1705 and 1711 with David Hoyer (1667-1720), the court painter in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

. After that, he settled in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

, where he worked as a portrait painter for the Holstein. In 1719, he was called to Denmark to work for the Danish Royal Family. When

Christian VI Christian VI (30 November 1699 – 6 August 1746) was King of Denmark and Norway from 1730 to 1746. The eldest surviving son of Frederick IV and Louise of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, he is considered one of Denmark-Norway's more anonymous kings, bu ...

ascended the throne in 1730, Wahl was appointed as court painter. In 1737, he took over the administration of the

Royal Collection The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world. Spread among 13 occupied and historic royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King Charles III and overseen by the ...

. In 1744, he became an honorary member of the

Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze The Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze ("academy of fine arts of Florence") is an instructional art academy in Florence, in Tuscany, in central Italy. It was founded by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1563, under the influence of Giorgio Vasari. M ...

. He was among the first Northern artists to apply the new French styles of portrait painting, emphasizing one's position in society rather than their personality, although his portraits of those outside the nobility tended to be freer in style.

References

* Altona Museum: ''The King's School speaks Latin. 250 years Christianeum 1738-1988''. Exhibition catalog, Hamburg 1988, Cat No. 19, pp.132f 1689 births 1765 deaths People from Chemnitz 18th-century Danish painters 18th-century male artists Danish male painters 18th-century German painters 18th-century German male artists German male painters Court painters {{Denmark-painter-stub