Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799)

After studying mathematics, astronomy and natural history, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) became professor of mathematics in Gottingen in 1770. The experience of teaching English students, two journeys to England (1770, 1774/1775) and his correspondence with contacts in London provided him with an excellent knowledge of English. As a result, he was in a good position to report on and from England for the Deutsche Museum and the Göttinger Taschenkalender, which he edited. At the same time, Lichtenberg, himself an occasional caricaturist, popularised the English painter and engraver William Hogarth in his four-volume Ausführlichen Erklärung der Hogarth'schen Kupferstiche, to which he devoted the last years of his life.

Portrait of  Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), copperplate engraving by J. C. Krüger based on Johann Ludwig Strecker (1721–1799), ca. 1780; source: Courtesy of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, https://library.si.edu/image-gallery/73115, public domain.