Assignments in Berlin and London
In 1787 Clemens was invited to Berlin to make an etching based on a drawing by Englishman E.F. Cunningham, "Frederick the Great Riding Home After Manoeuvres at Potsdam". He received royal approval and traveled there the next year. He lived in Berlin for four years under less than agreeable circumstances, as Cunningham was difficult to work with. He received membership in the Academy in Berlin in 1788, and his works were exhibited at the Berlin Academy that same year.
In 1789 his engravings based on Abildgaards originals appeared in another Ludwig Holberg work "Niels Klim". His wife succumbed to tuberculosis in 1791 in Berlin, leaving behind a nine year old son. Two other children had died young.
When the Berlin assignment was completed Clemens traveled in 1792 with royal permission to London to work on a new etching based on John Trumbull’s "Death of General Montgomery". This work brought him further commissions for prints based on several other paintings by Trumbull and Benjamin West.
He exhibited at the Charlottenborg Salon in Copenhagen for the first time in 1794, and again in 1815. In London he married Ann Rees in 1795.
Read more about this topic: Johan Frederik Clemens
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