a German painter, draughtsman, and etcher. Retzsch was born in the Saxon capital Dresden. He joined the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1798 under Cajetan Toscani and Józef Grassi, later working autodidactically, copying the famous pictures of the Gemäldegalerie, among them a copy of the Sixtinian Madonna. He was made a member of the Academy in 1817 and professor in 1824. The Cotta publishing house commissioned illustrations for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust (26 plates), which made him financially independent.
