Wilhelm Kray (29 December 1828, Berlin ; † 29 July 1889, Munich) was a German portrait, genre, and landscape painter as well as illustrator.

Life

Wilhelm Kray worked as a goldsmith before 1848. From 1848 he studied at the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin under Julius Schrader, Wilhelm Schirmer and Hermann Stilke. Between 1856 and 1872 he took part in the Berlin Academy exhibitions. In 1859/60 he was in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and studied in the studio of

Alexandre Cabanel Alexandre Cabanel (; 28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889) was a French Painting, painter. He painted historical, classical and religious subjects in the Academic art, academic style. He was also well known as a portrait painter. He was Napoleon ...

and

Paul Baudry Paul may refer to: People * Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people * Paul (surname), a list of people * Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament * Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo P ...

. He then returned to Berlin, where he worked primarily as a portraitist. Between 1867 and 1871 Kray worked in an art studio in Rome, from which he made numerous trips to Naples and Venice. Returning to Prussia around 1872, he became a member of the German Artists' Association.

Friedrich Noack Friedrich Noack, who wrote under the pseudonym ''F. Idus'', (20 April 1858, Gießen – 1 February 1930, Freiburg im Breisgau) was a German cultural historian and author, who wrote several articles for the Künstlerlexikon (arts dictionary) Thieme ...

: ''Das Deutschtum in Rom seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters''. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1927, Band 2, S. 334 From 1878 he lived in Vienna and from 1879 to 1888 took part in the International Art Exhibitions in the Munich Glass Palace. Wilhelm Kray's style is characteristic of German salon and exhibition painting of the mid to late 19th century, concentrating on romanticized themes from history, mythology, and allegory. His major works include

Psyche Psyche (''Psyché'' in French) is the Greek term for "soul" ( ψυχή). Psyche or La Psyché may also refer to: Psychology * Psyche (psychology), the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious * ''Psyche'', an 1846 book about the unc ...

with a Butterfly on the Lakeshore , Allegory of Winter, Southerner as an Allegory of Music, The Mermaid, The Boatman and the Mermaids, and The Myth of the Loreley, which were widely copied and reproduced during his lifetime, with Psyche being replicated on the serving dishes of the Royal Vienna China Company around 1889. Kray's public paintings still adorn the walls of the Cologne Museum and the Museum Gratz. According to E. Benezit, Kray's painting Venus Aphrodite, created around 1880 and originally intended for King

Ludwig II of Bavaria Ludwig II (Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm; 25 August 1845 – 13 June 1886), also called the Swan King or the Fairy Tale King (), was King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886. He also held the titles of Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke ...

, was sold to a French collector on March 7, 1911, for 8,500 francs, a huge sum at the time. The painting, one of Kray's largest, is thematically and stylistically similar to

William-Adolphe Bouguereau William-Adolphe Bouguereau (; 30 November 1825 – 19 August 1905) was a French Academic art, academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings, he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of Classicism, classical subjects, with a ...

's Birth of Venus (1879).

Gallery

File:Wilhelm Kray - Der Frühling 1887.jpg, Spring, 1887 File:Wilhelm Kray - Oriental girl.jpg, Oriental girl File:Wilhelm Kray - The Sirens, 1874.jpg, The Sirens, 1874 File:Wilhelm Kray - Winter.jpg, Winter

Literature

* Gitta Ho: ''Kray, Wilhelm''. In: Bénédicte Savoy, France Nerlich (Hrsg.): ''Pariser Lehrjahre. Ein Lexikon zur Ausbildung deutscher Maler in der französischen Hauptstadt''. Band 2: ''1844–1870.'' de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-031477-9, S. ?. * Dupont Vicars: ''Master Paintings of the World''. The White City Art Co. Press, Chicago, 1902. pp. 1–19

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kray, Wilhelm 1828 births 1889 deaths