ANTON GRAFF (WINTERTHUR 1736-1813 DRESDEN)

This newly discovered picture is a fine portrait of Philipp Daniel Lippert, an important draughtsman, antiquarian and collector in eighteenth century Germany. After an apprenticeship at the Dresden school of drawing, he worked at the Meissen porcelain factory, where he was recorded in 1726 as an artist. With the support of the Dresden architect Friedrich August Krubsacius, he obtained commissions from the court, and in 1735 he was appointed a drawing master at its Pagenakademie. Lippert began the study of antique gems and collected impressions from all over Europe, resulting in his monumental Dactyliotheca in 1755–6, which contained three ‘volumes’ with a total of over three thousand reproduced casts. His collection of impressions considerably furthered both the study of Classical antiquity during the Enlightenment and classicist tendencies in art. It became a model for the collections of impressions of gems that remained popular in the nineteenth century. For over twenty years he was the director of antiquities at the Dresden Academy of Arts, until his death in 1785.