Carstens, Asmus Jakob

Carstens, Asmus Jakob a Danish painter, was born at Sankt-Itirgen, near Schleswig, May 10,1754 While young he served in a mercantile house; buts afterwards, quitting his master, went to Copenhagen, where he supported himself for seven years by taking portraits in red chalk. During these years he produced two of his best pictures: The Death of Eschylus, and Eolus and Ulysses. In 1783 he started for Rome, but could go no farther than Mantua, on account of his poverty. Here he remained a month, and then went to Lubeck, where he spent five years in obscurity. Through the poet Overbeck he became acquainted with one of his wealthy patrons, who sent him to Berlin, where his Fall of the Angels gained him a professorship in the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1792 he went to Rome and studied the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and also those of Albert Direr, at Dresden. His best works were designs in water-colors and paintings in fresco. He died at Rome, May 25, 1798. His biography was published in 1806 (new ed. by Riegel, 1867), and his works engraved by Miller in 1869. See. Rose, Biog. Dict. s.v.; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Géneralé, s.v.; Spooner, Biog. Hist. of the Fine Arts, s.v.