CHARLES VOLKMAR (1841-1914)

Charles Volkmar is best known today as a ceramic artist, but in the mid-1860s, at the outset of his career, he was very much the model of an aspiring landscape painter. Most of his canvases were of considerable dimensions, and though they were probably studied in the United States, many of these American subjects were painted in Europe, along with Barbizon and other French scenes.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland to a family steeped in the arts (his grandfather was an engraver; his father, a Dresden-educated portrait painter, etcher and restorer),it was natural for Volkmar to pursue artistic training. Having received his initial art education at the Maryland Institute, he was an accomplished et...