Theodor Aman

For a young Romanian painter in the middle of the 19th century, there was nowhere at home to learn the craft. Theodor Aman set out to change that. In 1864 the ruler of the United Principalities, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, signed the decree that created the National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, and Aman, together with the painter Gheorghe Tattarescu, had campaigned for years to bring it about. He became its first director and its first teacher.

Aman had trained in Paris under the academic painters François-Édouard Picot and Michel Martin Drolling, and returned home in 1857 already known for large history scenes drawn from his country's past, among them Michael the Brave, the prince who briefly united the Romanian lands around 1600. He had lived through the revolution of 1848 as a young man, and that blend of patriotism and academic polish runs through much of his work.

The house he built for himself in Bucharest, which he designed and decorated down to the carved doors and painted ceilings, is now a museum kept much as he left it. He died there in 1891, at the age of 60.