Born in Esslingen into a family of Swiss industrialists, Caspar Ritter trained at the Winterthur School of Drawing before entering the Munich Academy in 1882, where he studied under Alois Gabl, Ludwig von Herterich and Ludwig von Löfftz. After teaching at the Städel Institute in Frankfurt from 1887, he became professor at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts the following year, a position he held until 1919. Building on his early successes at exhibitions in Munich and Berlin, he soon specialized in genre painting and portraiture, winning a gold medal at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung in 1896. Also tempted by history painting, he presented a Salomé in Paris at the 1900 Universal Exhibition (cat. no. 128), before being knighted in the Ord...