Karl Ludwig Friedrich Becker was a German painter of the 19th century. From 1837 to 1840, he studied at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. In 1840, he took part in the academy's exhibition for the first time and worked the following year as an assistant to the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. In 1842, one of his history paintings was awarded a scholarship which enabled him to study first in Paris in 1843, and from 1844 to 1847 in Rome. After his return to Berlin, he was commissioned to paint the Niobides Hall of the Neues Museum. At the same time, he painted numerous Italian genre scenes and landscapes. After a trip to Venice in 1853, Becker, influenced by the art of Paolo Veronese, specialised in history painting with sumptuous compositions. This type of painting met the representational needs of the Prussian bourgeoisie and he received numerous commissions for paintings and murals on his return to Berlin. Compared to the developments of modernism in art, however, Becker's paintings soon seemed old-fashioned, and he quickly fell into oblivion after his death. Moreover, many of his paintings, which were in museums in Berlin, Breslau, Stettin or Cologne, were destroyed during World War 2.