Biography

German painter and draughtsman, active also in Italy and Bohemia. He trained first with the Saxon court painter Lorenzo Rossi (c. 1690-1731), whom he accompanied to Venice in 1723. There in 1725 he joined the workshop of Giambattista Pittoni, with whom he worked until moving to Prague in 1735, where he matriculated at the Charles University. In 1738 he was summoned to Dresden by Frederick-Augustus II. In the same year he made a study trip to Rome, returning to Dresden in 1741. After his return, he was appointed court painter and completed a series of public and private commissions in Dresden, where he worked until his death.