Balthasar Anton Dunker

1746 Saal near Stralsund – 1807 Bern

In 1765 the painter and etcher Balthasar Anton Dunker followed his first teacher, Jakob Philipp Hackert, to Paris, where he apprenticed himself to Johann Georg Wille and continued his study of historical painting under Joseph-Marie Vien and Noel Hallé. But Dunker did not long remain in the lofty world of grande peinture. He turned to etching to earn his living and became a reproductive engraver. By 1772 Dunker was working in Basel as an engraver in the studio of Christian von Mechel before moving the following year to Bern, where he was to spend the rest of his life. Dunker proved a productive worker in his new home. He distinguished himself as a printmaker, doing reproductive prints after landscape drawings by his teacher and friend Hackert up to the 1780s. He was also successful as an illustrator, creating an extensive graphic and painted œuvre which, in keeping with the zeitgeist, was marked by a serene, idyllic concept of landscape.