Jakob Salomon Bartholdy

Jakob Ludwig Salomon Bartholdy (13 May 1779 – 27 July 1825) was a Prussian diplomat and art patron.

He took the additional surname Bartholdy from a property owned by his family on his conversion to Reformed Christianity.

Bartholdy fought in the Austrian army against Napoleon, afterward entered the diplomatic service of Prussia, and accompanied the Allied armies to Paris in 1814, whence he was dispatched to Rome in the following year as Prussian Consul-General.

The revival of fresco painting amongst young German artists in Italy was due largely to his patronage.

[2] Bartholdy’s sister Lea Salomon was married to Abraham Mendelssohn, whom Bartholdy persuaded to adopt his own “Christian” surname — to differentiate the family from its connection with Abraham's father, the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.