Kasparus Karsenartist • painterAmsterdam 1810-1896 Bieberich (Duitsland)

The Amsterdam painter Kasper Karsen trained with his uncle, the city and landscape artist George Westenberg. He later took classes at the municipal academy and with the painter Hendrik ten Cate. He specialised in city and river views: these were not topographic depictions but fantasy images in which he took elements from reality and combined them into an entirely new whole. Karsen travelled abroad at an early age, visiting Bretagne and travelling along the Rhine and Danube to Austria, among others. The ancient cities with their towers and squares, the imposing bridges and the quays with sailing craft can all be traced in his work.