The New International Encyclopædia/Graff, Anton

GRAFF, gräf, (1736-1813). A German painter, born at Winterthur, Switzerland. He was a pupil of Schellenberg in his native city, and then went to Ansbach, where he assisted the Court painter Schneider. Afterwards he was appointed Court painter, and was made professor at the Academy of Dresden (1766). He painted a great number of portraits of his contemporaries, nearly a thousand in all, and preserved in an honest and admirable manner the features of Lessing, Schiller, Mendelssohn, and many others of his celebrated contemporaries.