WOLF, Joseph

1820 - 1899

As Mathias Wolf, he was born at Mörz near Münstermaifeld then in Rhenish Prussia, now Germany, on 21 January 1820, eldest son of Anton Wolf, a farmer, and his wife Elisabeth née Probstfeld. During his boyhood he assiduously studied bird and animal life and showed a remarkable capacity as a draughtsman of natural history subjects. Mathias, who took the Christian name of Joseph, was apprenticed for three years to a firm of lithographers, Gebrüder Becker at Koblenz. Wolf travelled to Frankfurt and introduced himself as a lithographer to the ornithologist Eduard Rüppell (20 November 1794-10 December 1884). Rüppell was just beginning to work on his birds of Abyssinia and encouraged Wolf to work for him, either by living in Frankfurt or in Darmstadt where he suggested Wolf could work for Johann Jakob Kaup (1803-1873). Wolf moved to Darmstadt but went on working on Rüppell's 'The Birds of North-East Africa'. In 1847, he left Darmstadt to join the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp to learn Dutch oil painting techniques and in 1848 came to England from Belgium and began work at the British Museum on Gray's 'The Genera of Birds' becoming the preferred illustrator for explorers and naturalists David Livingstone (19 March 1813-1 May 1873), Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823-7 November 1913) and Henry Walter Bates (8 February 1825-16 February 1892 ), he also contributed to the Zoological Society's publications for some thirty years. Wolf exhibited at the Royal Academy 1849-1891 and, together with John Gould (14 September 1804-3 February 1881), visited Norway. He also exhibited at the Suffolk Fine Arts Association exhibition at Ipswich in 1850 'The Dying Partridge' and contributed to the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition in Fitzroy Square, London in 1857. In 1891, Joseph Wolf was a 71-year-old unmarried 'artist painter', living at Primrose Hill Studios, Fitzroy Road, St Pancras, London and where he died on 20 April 1899. (The life of Joseph Wolf, animal painter, by A. H. Palmer 1895).

Royal Academy Exhibits
as D. Wolf from 17 Howland Street, Fitzroy Square, London
1849 396 Woodcocks seeking shelter
as T. Wolf
1850 121 Autumn: Wounded Woodcock
         256 Wild Boar
         617 Winter: A dying Partridge
as F. Wolf
1851 825 The Falcon's Nest
as J. Wolf from 17 Howland Street, Fitzroy Square, London
1853 141 The Happy Mother
         323 The Mourner
         349 The Proud Bird of the Mountain

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Works by This Artist