August Kopisch

Nationality: German

1799 - 1853

The scion of a bourgeois merchant family, Kopisch studied at academies in Prague and Vienna. He journeyed to Italy in 1824, and during his five-year stay, turned his attention to literature and achieved success as a writer of poetry and verse. While on a swimming expedition with his friend, painter Ernst Fries, in 1826, he is credited with rediscovering the Blue Grotto in Capri, a cave forgotten for centuries. Back in Berlin, he published a collection of translations of Italian folk songs (1838) and a translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy (1840).

Place of Birth: Breslau, now Wroclaw
Place of Death: Berlin

Text written and researched by Michelle Bird National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.