Ludwig Passini
Ludwig Johann Passini (1832–1903), sometimes Ludovico Passini, was an Austrian narrative and genre painter and printmaker.
Also recorded as Ludwig Johann Passini · Luigi Giovanni Passini · ludwig passini · ludwig pasini
Ludwig Passini

Josef Kriehuber · Eigenes Foto einer Originallithographie der Albertina (Wien) · Public domain
- Name
- Ludwig Johann Passini
- Born
- 9 July 1832
- Birthplace
- Vienna
- Died
- 6 November 1903
- Place of death
- Venice
- Field
- watercolour and oil painting, printmaking
- Training
- Vienna Academy of Art
- Full name
- Ludwig Johann Passini.
- Nationality
- Austria.
- Occupation
- painter, printmaker, draftsperson and designer.
- Fields
- watercolor and print.
- Education
- Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
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wikidata · Q1247346 · wikipedia · Ludwig Passini
In this article
Biography
Biography
Ludwig Passini studied at Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. The recorded working language is German. The field of work recorded is watercolor and print. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Work by Ludwig Passini is recorded in the collections of Belvedere, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Alte Nationalgalerie. Distinctions recorded are Legion of Honour, Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts order and Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art.

Ludwig Passini, Passini Ludwig - Römischer Park
Ludwig Passini · Kunkel Fine Art /Foto: Walter Bayer, München
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Ludwig Johann Passini • Born — 9 July 1832 • Birthplace — Vienna • Died — 6 November 1903 • Place of death — Venice • Field — watercolour and oil painting, printmaking • Training — Vienna Academy of Art • Illustration — Figures on a Venetian canal • Illustration — Ludwig Passini – Caffè Greco in Rome • Illustration — Ludwig Passini – An earnest conversation • Illustration — Ludwig Passini – Roman street scene • Illustration — Ludwig Passini – Roman Fish Market at Sant'Angelo in Pescheria
Personal life
Personal life
Ludwig Passini was born on 9 July 1832 in Vienna, the son of Louise Passini and the engraver Johann Nepomuk Passini. The Passini family moved to Trieste in 1850. On 9 November 1864 Passini married Anna Warschauer (1841–1866), who was the daughter of Robert and Mary Warschauer, the great-granddaughter of banker Joseph Mendelssohn and the great-great-granddaughter of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. The couple, who lived alternately in Berlin and Rome, had one daughter. Anna died one and a half years after the wedding. Ludwig Passini died on 6 November 1903 in Venice.
Career
Career
Passini was taught art first by his father, and later studied at the Vienna Academy of Art under the painters Joseph von Führich and Leopold Kupelwieser. In the 1850s, Passini settled in Venice, where he worked in the studio of Carl Werner. He had previously studied under Werner at Leipzig, and he accompanied Werner on his painting tour of Italy. The fellow artist Anton Romako was also part of Werner's studio. Between 1853 and 1870 Passini lived in Rome, where his work became focused on the human figure set against architectural and interior elements, and within narrative themes. From 1873, and for the rest of his life, he remained in Venice – though with occasional visits to Berlin – where his watercolours often featured everyday Venetian life, ordinary people, and portraiture. While in Venice, Passini became part of the artist colony of Henry Woods, August von Pettenkofen, Carl van Haanen, Eugene de Blaas, Wolkoff, Ruben, and Thoren. Passini occupied a studio in the Palazzo Vendramin Calergi for thirty years with fellow artists Carlo Reichardt and Luigi Mion. While here, in 1892, he painted his portraits of Katherine Bronson and Edith, her daughter, and the English Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and art historian Sir Henry Layard. A further two 1892 portraits were of the American art collectors Jack Gardner (also a businessman), and his wife Isabella (founder of Fenway Court art museum), who lived at the Palazzo Barbaro. Isabella had commissioned the paintings after meeting Passini at a dinner party held by Katherine Bronson. The portrait of Isabella was not successful and did not survive. A friend of Passini was the exiled Richard Wagner, who died at Vendramin Calergi in 1883. Passini, along with fellow painter Wolkoff, suggested a death mask for Wagner. The idea was at first rejected by Wagner's wife Cosima, but was carried out by Passini and the sculptor Augusto Benvenuti under the agreement, and eye, of Cosima's daughter, Daniela. The first Venice Biennale was held in 1895 as an exhibition of Italian art. In formulating the Biennale in 1893, the mayor of Venice, Riccardo Selvatico, was advised by a committee of internationally exhibiting artists from many European countries, one being Ludwig Passini. Passini received medals in Paris (1870), Vienna (1873), Munich (1879), and Berlin (1896). His works were included in exhibitions at the Royal Academy and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in London, and he became an honorary member of the latter in 1883. Passini was awarded the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 1893. In 1878 Passini was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and the following year an honorary professor of the Vienna Academy of Art. He was also a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin and the Academy of Arts, Venice.
Selected works
Selected works
His watercolor, I Canonici a vespro, exhibited at the 1867 Exposition of Paris, was awarded the grand gold medal. He painted atmospheric scenes of every day, that is genre scenes, of life in Venice. One of his contemporaries was Carlo Van Haanen. Other works include:Monaci in Coro, la Maddalena, l'Abatino, Un ponte, Le donne al pozzo, La lettura del Tasso a Chioggia, and La vendita delle zucche a Venezia. Works include: • Monks Buying Fish at the Portal of the Madonna della Misericordia (1855) • Salone of the Palazzo Barbaro (1855) • Cafè Greco in Rome (1856), Kunsthalle Hamburg • Roman Fish Market at Sant'Angelo in Pescheria (1863) • The confessional (1863) • The interior of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (1867) • The Latin Class (1869) • A Shared Confidence (1870) • Praying in a Venetian church (1873) • Bridge at the Riva degli Schiavoni – A Procession in Venice (1873–74) • People on a Venetian canal (1893) • A Clerical Intervention (1897)
Identity and origins
Identity and origins
Ludwig Passini was recorded at birth as Ludwig Johann Passini. His recorded language was German.
Identity
Identity
Ludwig Passini is recorded as having received Legion of Honour, Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts order and Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art. Within the Encyclopedia. Connected to 1 other published record in the VALÉORINE Encyclopedia.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1832
Ludwig Passini born at Vienna.
1903
Ludwig Passini died at Venice.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Vienna.
Birth place
Venice.
Death place
Reception
Passini exhibited in the Italian Fine Arts Section of the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle. The art critic Philip Gilbert Hamerton described Italian painting of the time as playful to the point of being childish, although original with direct observation of nature. Passini's work for the Exposition was considered by critics to have saved the quality of Italian art shown. The Viennese author and critic Ludwig Hevesi believed Passini to be "the major watercolour painter of Venice... who grew rapidly to be the most important genre painter." Art historian Wilhelm Lübke described Passini's work: "Admirable character-pictures of Southern life may be found in the masterly watercolours of Ludwig Passini, with their beautifully-finished colouring." The 19th-century arts magazine The Aldine in 1878 described Passini's pictures as "showing a skill in studying the human face, and an appreciation of its expressions, which indicate natural gift even more than close study... [and] the careful drawing and skillful posing of... figures."
Recognition and collections
Where the work is held
Recognition and collections
Ludwig Passini received Legion of Honour, Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts order and Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art.
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q1247346: Ludwig Passini
Reputable secondary · Wikimedia Foundation
- “Ludwig Passini”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
scholarly publication
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Ludwig Passini, revision 1365096899 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1."Ludwig Johann Passini, 1832–1903", The Correspondence of James McNeil Whistler, University of Glasgow, Retrieved 29 January 2014
- 2.Wawrik, Franz; Zeilinger, Elisabeth (1989); Österreich auf alten Karten und Ansichten, Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, p.362.
- 3.Kashey, Robert; Reymert, Martin L. H. (1981); German drawings and watercolors, 1780–1880 (a survey of works on paper by German-speaking artists), Shepherd Gallery, Associates, New York City, p.100
- 4.Adelson, Warren (2006); ’’Sargent's Venice’’, Yale University Press, pp.185, 196. . Quoting Vardui Kalpukcian: "Ludwig Passini (1832, Vienna – 1903, Venezia): un pittore austriaco, ritrattista della vista Venezia" in Roemische Historische Mitteilungen, ed. Richard Borsel and Herman Fillitz, vol 46, Roman Historical Releases 46th Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna (2004), p.357.
- 5.Fildes, Luke Val: Luke Fildes R.A.: A Victorian Painter; Michael Joseph, London (1968), p.50
- 6.Chong, Alan (2009); "Henry James, Mrs Gardner and Art" in Letters to Isabella Stewart Gardner, ed. Rosella Mamoli Zorzi, Pushkin Press (2012), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
- 7.Carter, Morris; Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway court, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (1963), pp.130,178. Ayer Co, Pub.; reprint edition (1972).
- 8.Barker, John W. (2008); Wagner and Venice, University of Rochester Press, p.57.
- 9.Arte E Artisti Nella Modernità, Antonello Negri (editor), Jaca Book SpA Milan (2000), pp.168,170.
- 10.Spielmann, Marion Harry (1904) The Magazine of Art, vol. 2, Petter and Gallpin; reprint Nabu Press (2010), p.174
- 11."Italy at the Paris Exposition", The Aldine – The Art Journal of America, volume 9, no. 9, (1879), p.297
- 12.Hevesi, Ludwig (1903); Austrian Art of the 19th Century, part 2: 1848–1900, Seemann, Leipzig, p.236
- 13.Lübke, Wilhelm (1878); Outlines of the History of Art. Classic, Dodd Mead, p.264; reprint Lightning Source UK Ltd (2012).
- 14."Two Characteristic Pictures", The Aldine – The Art Journal of America, volume 9, no. 3, (1878), p.110
- 15.Emporium Volume 18, (1903): Miscellanea (obituary) by Pompeo Molmenti. Instituto d'arti Grafiche Bergamo, Editore.page 473-474.
- 16.Pelou, Pierre; Impromptus italiens, L'Harmattan (2013), p.59.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 3
- Ludwig Passini in General Encyclopedia of Artists of the antiquity to the present, volume XXVI, p.286, Seemann, Leipzig (1932)
- Kalpakcian, Vardui; Ludwig Passini (1832, Vienna – 1903, Venezia): un pittore austriaco, ritrattista della vista Venezia, ed. Richard Boesel, Fillitz Hermann; Roman Historical Releases 46th Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna (2004).
- Bénézit, E.; Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, 8 vols, Paris (1956–61); reprint Librairie Grund; 4th illustrated edition (1999)
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
scholarly publication
Institutional witnessreference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q1247346: Ludwig PassiniWikimedia Foundation
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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