Woltze, Berthold

Berthold Woltze (1829–1896) was a German genre and portrait painter who taught as professor at the Weimar Saxon Grand Ducal Art School. Between 1871 and 1878 he published many of his works in the popular illustrated weekly Die Gartenlaube, bringing his art to a wide audience. His most celebrated painting, Der lästige Kavalier (The Irritating Gentleman, 1874), now held at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, has become one of the most widely shared images of 19th-century genre painting — remarkable for the psychological intensity captured in the young woman’s expression.