Karl Friedrich Lessing was a German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 historical

History painting

History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...

 and landscape painter, grandnephew of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature...

. He was born near Breslau, and was a pupil of Heinrich Anton Dähling

Heinrich Anton Dähling

Heinrich Anton Dähling, a historical and genre painter, was born at Hanover in 1773. In 1794 he went to Berlin, where he was engaged in miniature painting and as a teacher of drawing. In 1802 he visited Paris, and the study of the galleries there first induced him to attempt painting in oil...

 at the Berlin Academy. He first devoted himself to landscape and in 1826 obtained a prize with his Cemetery in Ruins. He accompanied Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow

Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow

Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow was a German Romantic painter.-Biography:He was born in Berlin and was the second son of the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow....

 to Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

, where he continued his studies, devoting himself to historical paintings. In 1830, when Schadow went to Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Lessing occupied his place as director of the academy, exercising great influence on the Düsseldorf school

Düsseldorf School

The Düsseldorf school of painting refers to a group of painters who taught or studied at the Düsseldorf Academy in the 1830s and 1840s, when the Academy was directed by the painter Wilhelm von Schadow...

. His picture Das trauernde Königspaar (Mourning Royal Couple) brought him great popularity. In 1837, he received a gold medal at Paris; he was a member of the Berlin Academy and was the recipient of several orders. In 1858 he was appointed director of the gallery at Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe

The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

, where he continued his activity as a painter until his death in 1880.