Adam Johann Braun
1748–1827 · Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire
The story
A small picture on a sheet of copper, polished until the brushwork almost disappears. That is the kind of painting Adam Johann Braun made in late 18th-century Vienna, where collectors prized the fine Dutch cabinet pictures of the 1600s by masters like Gerard Dou of Leiden, and Braun learned to paint in that manner.
He entered the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts at 12, studied under the court painter Martin van Meytens, and worked on his own account from 1768. The Belvedere holds two of his copper panels, The Gallant Aide from 1785 and an undated scene of a painter at work in his studio, signed simply A. Braun.
In 1789 the Academy made him a member. Painting was only part of his living, though. Braun also dealt in pictures, restored them, and was appointed an official appraiser of paintings for the Lower Austrian courts and the customs office. He died in 1827 at his home on Rauhensteingasse, in the centre of Vienna.
