1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Piloty, Karl von

PILOTY, KARL VON (1826–1886), German painter, was born at Munich, on the 1st of October 1826. His father, Ferdinand Piloty (d. 1844), enjoyed a great reputation as a lithographer. In 1840 he was admitted as a student of the Munich Academy, under the artists Schorn and Schnorr. After a journey to Belgium, France and England, he commenced work as a painter of genre pictures, and in 1853 produced a work, Die Amme (“The Wet Nurse”), which, on account of its originality of style, caused a considerable sensation in Germany at the time. But he soon forsook this branch of painting in favour of historical subjects, and produced in 1854 for King Maximilian II. “The Adhesion of Maximilian I. to the Catholic League in 1609.” It was succeeded by “Seni at the Dead Body of Wallenstein” (1855), which gained for the young painter the membership of the Munich Academy, where he succeeded Schorn (his brother-in-law) as professor. Among other well-known works by Piloty are the “Battle of the White Mountain near Prague,” “Nero Dancing upon the Ruins of Rome” (1861), “Godfrey of Bouillon on a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land” (1861), “Galileo in Prison” (1864), and “The Death of Alexander the Great” (unfinished), his last great work. He also executed a number of mural paintings for the royal palace in Munich. For Baron von Schach he painted the justly celebrated “Discovery of America.” In 1874 he was appointed keeper of the Munich Academy, being afterwards ennobled by the king of Bavaria. Piloty was the foremost representative of the realistic school in Germany. He was a most successful teacher, and among his more famous pupils may be mentioned Makart, Lenbach, Defregger, Max and Grutzner. He died at Munich on the 21st of July 1886.