Joseph Wolf

Joseph Wolf (1820-1899) was a German artist who specialised in natural history illustration. He moved to the British Museum in 1848 and became the preferred illustrator for explorers and naturalists. Wolf depicted animals accurately in lifelike postures and is considered one of the great pioneers of wildlife art. 

Wolf was born in Mörz, near Münstermaifeld, then in Rhenish Prussia, not far from the river Moselle, in the Eifel region. He was originally called Mathias but later went by the name of Joseph. In his boyhood he studied bird and animal life, and showed a remarkable capacity as a draughtsman of natural history subjects. He showed an early talent for art by cutting paper silhouettes of birds and animals which he pasted onto windows. He later took an interest in hunting. He made himself brushes from the fur of a stone marten, and drew illustrations of birds that he raised from the nest or found near his home. He took a special interest in birds of prey, and considered art as a career but realised at the age of sixteen that he needed more training to be professional. With support from his father he was apprenticed to a firm of lithographers, Gebrüder Becker at Koblenz. Here he found his first illustrated ornithology book. He returned home after three years of apprenticeship, and for a while took up a temporary job with the village headman in searching homes for illegally concealed liquor.

Wolf travelled to Frankfurt and introduced himself as a lithographer to the ornithologist Eduard Rüppell. Rüppell was just beginning to work on the birds of Abyssinia and he encouraged Wolf to work for him either by living in Frankfurt or Darmstadt where he suggested Wolf could work for Johann Jakob Kaup. Wolf moved to Darmstadt but went on working on Rüppell's The Birds of North-East Africa. Kaup was impressed by his abilities and took one of Wolf's sketchbooks to a meeting in Leyden to show to Hermann Schlegel at the Natural History Museum, Leiden. Schlegel immediately commissioned Wolf to work on some plates for Traité de Fauconnerie. The result was a set of "magnificent paintings of birds of prey in life size" which established Wolf's reputation in Europe.

Wolf travelled to London in 1848, and was introduced by David William Mitchell, an amateur illustrator himself and a secretary of the Zoological Society of London, to Trübner of Longmans publishing. The next day he was set to work on Gray's The Genera of Birds. While at work in the insect room of the British Museum, he met other naturalists including J.O. Westwood with whom he could converse in French. He was a friend of William Russell, an accountant and a Campbell related to the Duke of Argyll. Russell brought Sir Edwin Landseer and the Duke of Argyll to see the works of Wolf. The Duke soon became a patron and he was also introduced to the Duke of Westminster. Wolf's paintings were also appreciated by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of London.

John Gould admired Wolf and would have liked him on his staff, but Wolf only contributed illustrations on a freelance basis. Wolf accompanied Gould on a collection trip to Norway. Wolf thought of Gould as a shrewd and uncouth man. Wolf also noted that Gould lacked a knowledge of feather patterning, apart from knowing nothing about composition, with a tendency to add too much colour, claiming that specimens in the wild were brighter.

Wolf was commissioned by the Zoological Society of London to paint a watercolour of wapiti deer in the snow; it is dated January 1881. Wolf soon became the illustrator of choice for all the books published by returning adventurers like David Livingstone, Alfred Russel Wallace and Henry Walter Bates.

Wolf died in London, surrounded by his pet birds. He is buried on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery.