Ludwig Lindenschmit the Elder

Ludwig Lindenschmit (the Elder) (September 4, 1809 – February 14, 1893) was a German history painter, prehistorian and art instructor who was a native of Mainz.

Here, he taught classes in art until the 1870s, and as his career progressed, his interest in prehistoric Germanic antiquities grew.

In 1848 he published Das Germanische Totenlager von Selzen, an important treatise on Germanic sepulchral mounds.

Lindenschmit was an outspoken critic of the "three-age system" developed by archaeologist Christian Jürgensen Thomsen (1788–1865).

As a painter, he assisted his brother, Wilhelm, with the historic frescoes at Hohenschwangau Castle in the Ostallgäu district .