Fisherman’s Wife Mourning at the Shore

The genre painter Julius Muhr, born to a Central European Jewish family, studied at the royal art academies in Berlin and Munich. From 1847 to 1854, he worked on Wilhelm von Kaulbach’s suite of murals for the grand staircase at the Neues Museum in Berlin. While primarily known for his genre paintings, Muhr also painted portraits, including one of Leopold Zunz, a founder of Wissenschaft des Judentums (“Science of Judaism”). Muhr converted to Protestantism when he married in 1860.