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| Theodor von Holst Sheet of figure studies 1834 watercolour and bodycolour British Museum |
Theodor von Holst (1810-1844) - historical painter, the son of a teacher of music of Livonian descent, was born in London on 3 Sept. 1810. At an early age he was admitted a student at the Royal Academy, where he attracted the notice of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who bought some of his drawings. But the artist who influenced him most was Fuseli, whose pupil he became and whose peculiarities he copied and exaggerated. He sent his first picture to the Royal Academy in 1827, and continued to exhibit there and at the British Institution till the year of his death. His subjects were either taken from literature, Dante, Shakespeare, Scott, and especially Goethe, or inventions of his own with melodramatic titles. His principle works were The Drinking Scene in Faust, The Apparition to the second Lord Lyttelton, and The Raising of Jairus's daughter (engraved), for which the directors of the British Institution awarded him a prize of fifty guineas in 1841. He was gifted with a talent for drawing and fine sense of colour, but it was the universal opinion of critics that he was spoilt by ill-advised adulation, and that his powers were wasted on the gloomy and romantic subjects which he chose to paint. He illustrated an edition of Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, published in 1831. He died at 2 Percy Street, Bedford Square, on 12 Feb. 1844.
– Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Leslie Stephen (1899)
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| Theodor von Holst Sheet of studies, including portrait of E.T.A. Hoffmann before 1844 drawing British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Studies of two faces before 1844 drawing British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Study of leg and transcription of verse before 1844 drawing British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Study of two men and text of letter (in German) before 1844 drawing British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Figure study and anatomical studies before 1844 drawing British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Faust standing in his study reading ca. 1820-25 etching (book illustration) British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Scene from Goethe's Faust before 1844 watercolour British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Whirlwind of lovers following demonic horse out of the chimney of a furnace (possible illustration to Faust) ca. 1830-35 etching British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Figure studies of two nude men, whole-length in mirror-image (possible illustration to Faust) 1837 lithograph British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Young woman with lantern and young man with sword confronting old bearded man (possible illustration to Faust) ca. 1828-35 lithograph British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Witch appearing to maiden before 1844 drawing British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Hamlet Act III scene iv Hamlet and Gertrude with ghost of Hamlet's father before 1844 drawing British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Aristotle and Phyllis (studies of woman riding on back of philosopher, brandishing whip) before 1844 drawing British Museum |
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| Theodor von Holst Man in 16th-century dress before 1844 watercolour British Museum |