Peter Janssen was a German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 historical painter. He was born at Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

, son of the engraver

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

 Theodor Janssen (1817–1894), by whom he was first instructed before studying at the Academy

Kunstakademie Düsseldorf

The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, formerly Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, is the Arts Academy of the city of Düsseldorf. It is well known for having produced many famous artists, such as Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Thomas Demand, and Andreas Gursky...

 under Karl Sohn

Karl Ferdinand Sohn

Karl Ferdinand Sohn was a German painter of the Düsseldorf school.He was born in Berlin and studied there under Wilhelm von Schadow, whom he followed to Düsseldorf. He treated principally mythical and poetic subjects of a highly romantic character, and painted in the mechanically idealistic manner...

 (Ger. wiki) and Bendemann

Eduard Bendemann

Eduard Julius Friedrich Bendemann was a German painter.-Biography:Bendemann was born in Berlin. His father, Anton Heinrich Bendemann, was a Jewish banker. His mother, Fanny Eleonore Bendemann née von Halle, was a daughter of the Jewish banker Joel Samuel von Halle...

. He is principally known through a series of decorative works whose monumental style and sound naturalism won him a reputation as one of the foremost historical painters of his time. He became professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 at the Düsseldorf Academy in 1877 and its director in 1895, and was elected a member of the Berlin Academy

Akademie der Künste

The Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...

 in 1885. His more important mural paintings include:

• "The Colonization of the Baltic Coast" (1872), in the exchange at Bremen
• "The Myth of Promethus," in 12 compositions, in the second Cornelius Room of the National Gallery in Berlin
  Berlin
  Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
  
  
• "Seven Momentous Episodes in the History of Erfurt" (1882), Town Hall, Erfurt
  Erfurt
  Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...
  
  
• "Human Life," "Imagination," "Beauty," and "Nature," in the Aula of the Düsseldorf Academy

Of his oil paintings, the "Denial of Peter

Saint Peter

Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...

" is in the Academy at Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

; the "Infancy of Bacchus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

" (1882) excited great admiration at the International Exhibition in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

; and "Walther Dodde and the Peasants of Berg before the Battle of Worringen, 1288" (Düsseldorf Gallery), a composition of great dramatic power, containing many life-size figures, was awarded the great gold medal in Berlin in 1893.

He was the brother of sculptor Karl Janssen

Karl Janssen

Karl Janssen was a German sculptor working in the Baroque revival tradition; he was born and died in Düsseldorf.Born in a family of artists, he studied at the Königlich Preußischen Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf from 1872 to 1880...

whose works include the monument to the Kaiser at Düsseldorf, and "Woman Hewing Stone," in the National Gallery, Berlin.

Paintings