(b Soldin, Brandenburg, 2 Aug 1791; d Prague, 27 Sept 1868). Bohemian painter of Prussian birth. He was representative of a movement in central Europe away from early 19th-century eclecticism towards the conventions of late Romantic art in mid-century. His principal occupation was as a button-maker, a trade he learnt from his father, and he continued to earn his living in this way even after he had settled in Prague (c. 1810–11). Meanwhile, he taught himself to paint on his travels through central Europe. In 1807–10 he stayed in Switzerland and probably studied with Johann Heinrich Wuest. With Josef Matej Navrátil he eventually became a spokesman for artists’ rights in Bohemia, being part of a democratic development taking place from the 1820s to the 1850s. His allegiance to this cause appealed to the professional and patriotic tastes of the lower middle classes, the group who most frequently patronized him and bought his mostly small-scale paintings. He was primarily a landscape painter who usually worked in a Romantic style, sometimes using free brushwork. However, his characteristic emphasis on effects of light and atmosphere, especially in his sketches, shows a Romantic–Realist tendency (e.g. Waterfall, c. 1850; Prague, N.G.). His work was popular after the mid-19th century. His daughters, Charlotte Weyrother-Mohr-Piepenhagen (1828–1902) and Louise Piepenhagen (1828–93), painted landscapes in their father’s style.