Karl Wilhelm Gropius

When he was still a child the family moved to Berlin where his father opened a mask factory and shop.

In Paris he became familiar with the diorama theatre invented by Louis Daguerre and Charles Marie Bouton.

[6] Returning to Berlin he trained under the artist and architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel as a landscape painter.

In this capacity he designed inter alia the stage settings and backdrops for the premiere of Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber which on 18 June 1821 opened the newly-rebuilt Schauspielhaus Berlin, designed by his teacher Schinkel.

[7] In Italy and Greece[8] he had assembled a large collection of views, which he put to use in the diorama theatre, based on Daguerre's, which he opened with his brothers in 1827 in the Georgenstraße, Berlin, which together with the Gropius's adjacent shop for art publications became a great success.