Jakob Philip Hackert was born in Prenzlau in 1737. His uncle Johann Gottlieb Hackert trained him as a decorative painter. Beginning in 1758 he studied at the Königliche Akademie (Royal Academy) in Berlin. In 1765 he travelled to Paris, where he lived for a time before leaving in 1768 for Rome. He travelled widely in Italy. He first visited Naples in 1770, and while there in 1774 he witnessed an eruption of Vesuvius. In 1783 he was named an honorary member of Berlin’s Royal Academy, and in 1786 he was appointed painter to the court of King Ferdinand IV of Naples. In 1787 he repeatedly met with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and the two spent hours drawing together. In 1799, Hackert fled from advancing French revolutionary troops to Livorno. He then lived in Pisa and Florence, and in 1803 settled in San Piero di Careggio, where he died in 1807.
