(Munich 1740-1814) The Adoration of the Shepherds, a double sided study sheet, pen and brown ink, brown wash, on laid paper, dated "gezeichnet a. 1799" on both sides, illegibly inscribed "Heilige drei Könige..." and "Zu dem seligen...", numbered "43", 20,2 x 28,8 cm, browned, some foxing, unmounted (Sch) After his formation in the studio of his father Franz Josef Weiss (1699-1770) the artist, a native of Munich, was active as a porcelain painter in the Nymphenburg manufacture since 1764. He continued his studies in the gallery of Schleißheim Castle which was made available to him through a stipend from the Electoral court. In 1771 he became a pupil of F. I. Oefele (1721-1797) in whose Munich drawing school he finished his studies. Subsequently he became court painter at the Bavarian-Electoral Court and in 1770 had become a member of the Munich art academy. The present three drawings may derive from a large sketchbook of the artist. The numbering of the sheets "31, 39, 43" may refer to the pages in the sketchbook. In the sketchbook Weiss may have recorded his inventions and first ideas and may have tried out different solutions of existant compositions. Perhaps some of the figures go back to elder Munich masters such as Johann Andreas Wolff (1652-1716) or Johann Georg Asam (1668-1741), whose drawings he copied for study purposes. See: Thieme-Becker, Allg. Lexikon der Bildenden Kunst, Vol. 35 (1924), pp. 323-24.