Johann Philipp Veith

1768–1837, Dresden

Johann Philipp Veith was trained as a landscape draughtsman and engraver by Adrian Zingg at the Dresden Academy. From 1785 he contributed to the Academy’s exhibitions views of Saxony that were executed in sepia technique in the style favoured by Zingg. After 1790, Veith’s landscape drawings in chalk and bistre, in which he gradually disassociated himself from the conventional veduta and revealed a truer feeling for nature, were held in very high esteem. Veith produced a very extensive output of prints, including reproductive engravings, landscapes, vedute of his own invention, and book illustrations. Despite his membership of the Dresden Academy and a post as a teacher of landscape art, Veith was forced to work as a reproductive engraver in order to earn his living. In addition to this bread-and-butter work the artist etched for his own amusement small, poetic landscapes, which he published in two instalments entitled Works of Leisure.