Wilhelm Friedrich Gmelin

1745 Badenweiler – 1820 Rome

Born in Badenweiler in 1745, Wilhelm Friedrich Gmelin went to Rome in early 1787. In the spring of that year he visited Naples, where he was invited by Johann Philipp Hackert to make reproductive engravings after some of his vedute. In 1790 Gmelin returned to Rome, where he ran a flourishing engraving business. He remained in the city with a brief interruption until his death. Among his friends were prominent visitors to Rome, including Wilhelm von Humboldt, Friederike Brun and Carl Ludwig Fernow.