Ludwig Passini
1832–1903 · Austrian narrative and genre painter and printmaker, known for watercolours
Ludwig Johann Passini (Vienna, 9 July 1832 – Venice, 6 November 1903) was an Austrian narrative and genre painter, sometimes known as Ludovico Passini. The son of the engraver Johann Nepomuk Passini, he was first taught by his father and later trained at the Vienna Academy of Art under Joseph von Führich and Leopold Kupelwieser. He is best remembered for his watercolours of everyday Venetian life, ordinary people and portraits.
In the 1850s he settled in Venice, working in the studio of Carl Werner, whom he had earlier followed from Leipzig on a painting tour of Italy. From 1853 to 1870 he lived in Rome, where his work concentrated on figures set against architectural and interior elements, within narrative themes. From 1873 he lived in Venice for the rest of his life, with occasional visits to Berlin.
In 1892 he painted portraits of Sir Henry Layard and of the American collector Isabella Stewart Gardner, and he was a friend of Richard Wagner, for whose death mask he worked with the sculptor Augusto Benvenuti. He received medals in Paris, Vienna, Munich and Berlin, became a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1878 and an honorary professor of the Vienna Academy the following year. Critics such as Ludwig Hevesi and Wilhelm Lübke praised his work, and he is remembered as one of the leading watercolourists of Venice in his day.