Artist/Maker

Welfare, Christian Daniel

Place Made

Date Made

DATE MADE: 1832 c.

Medium

oil on linen

Dimensions

WOA 23 1/2; HOA 27 1/2

Accession Number

404.2

Description

DESCRIPTION: Oil on linen portrait of Wilhelm Ludwig Benzien, 1797-1832, of Salem. Shows Benzien with a violin in hand and a scene of Salem in background.

History

RELATED NAME: Welfare, Christian Daniel (artist)

Artist Biography

ARTIST BIO: Christian Daniel Welfare (Wohlfahrt) was born June 12, 1796 in Salem, North Carolina. He died August 30, 1841 in Salem. His parents were Jacob Wohlfahrt and Anna Elizabeth Schneider Wohlfahrt. Daniel married Catharina Hege in 1828, together they had three children.

“Welfare was briefly apprenticed to a joiner. He later became a teacher in the Boys School and during his lifetime served the community in many ways: sick-nurse of the Single Brother, tavern keeper, member of the Aufsher Collegium, member of the Salem Light Infantry Company, delegate from the Salem Congregation to the Synod in Herrnhut in 1836.” (Bivins & Welshimer, p.96) Daniel Welfare was also the first portrait and landscape artist in Salem. He studied painting in Philadelphia under Thomas Sully. In 1825, he exhibited at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts.