Gustav Adolf Hippius

Gustav Adolf Hippius (12 March 1792, Nissi Parish - 6 October 1856, Reval) was a Baltic-German portrait painter and lithographer. Life and work His father, , was an evangelical chaplain. He lost his mother at an early age, and was sent to a boarding house in Reval. From 1810 to 1812, he studied drawing at a local religious school, with , a famous painter from Dresden, who was tutoring the children of August von Kotzebue . While there, he became lifelong friends with Otto Friedrich Ignatius, another aspiring artist and son of the school's founder. His friends helped him stage an exhibition, which earned him enough money to study in Prague. He then studied copper engraving at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, from 1813 to 1815. In 1816, he and his friend, , travelled through Salzburg, Munich, Venice and Florence; arriving in Rome in the Spring of 1817. He lived there for two years, and became associated with members of the Nazarene movement, including Johann Friedrich Overbeck, who became a good friend. He produced numerous portraits there; notably one of Beethoven, which is now at the Beethoven House in Bonn. After leaving there, he stopped in Switzerland before returning home. In 1820, he married Ignatius' sister, Friederike (1798-1886). Shortly after, they moved to Saint Petersburg, where he worked as a portrait painter. Two of their sons, Otto and , became architects.