KOCH, JOSEPH ANTON, a celebrated German landscape-painter, was born of poor parents at Obergiebln am Bach, in the valley of the Lech, in the south of Germany, in 1768. Some of his early attempts attracted the notice of Bishop Umgelder, vicar-general of Augsburg, who placed Koch with a painter in that city and provided for his maintenance. He was shortly afterwards sent by the bishop to the Carla-Academie at Stuttgart, where he remained seven years, and became in the meantime an able landscape-painter. Koch tried his fortune in Rome at an early date, and he met with complete success; he married a Roman girl and settled himself fixedly in Rome, where he enjoyed a great reputation for, with the exception of a short interval, at least half a century, and he was for many years looked upon as the Nestor of the German artists there. He died at Rome, January 12, 1839.
Koch was not exclusively a landscape-painter, though he is chiefly distinguished as such. He is known for some clever illustrations to Dante. Among his pictures not exclusively landscapes are, 'Noah's
Sacrifice,' the Emancipation of the Tyrol by Hofer,' the 'Flight of Laban,' the fresco illustrations to Dante in the Villa Massimi, besides some others. He has painted several fine Alpine views; and many poetical landscapes, which are rather characteristic pictures of a peculiar class of scenery than prospects of particular localities. He frequently composed his landscapes out of such peculiarities of mountain scenery as wero congenial with his individual taste, and I the parts were always well arranged, and true and characteristic in their details. In colouring he was heavy and monotonous. His latest works were comparatively careless in execution. Koch was also an etcher of considerable skill, and among his works in this class ara twenty-four designs from the ancient fable of the Argonautic expe. dition, after Carstens.