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PILOTY, KARL VON (1826-1886), German painter, was born at Munich, on the 1st of October 1826. His father, Ferdinand Piloty (d. 1844), enjoyed a great reputation as a lithographer. In 184o he was admitted as a student of the Munich Academy, under the artists Schorn and Schnorr. After a journey to Belgium, France and England, he commenced work as a painter of genre pictures, and in 1853 produced a work, Die Amme (" The Wet Nurse "), which, on account of its originality of style,--PIMENTO
caused a considerable sensation in Germany at the time. But he soon forsook this branch of painting in favour of historical
subjects, and produced in 1854 for King Maximilian II.	" The
Adhesion of Maximilian I. to the Catholic League in	1609."
It was succeeded by " Seni at the Dead Body of Wallenstein " (1855), which gained for the young painter the membership of the Munich Academy, where he succeeded Schorn (his brother-in-law) as professor. Among other well-known works by Piloty are the " Battle of the White Mountain near Prague," " Nero Dancing upon the Ruins of Rome " (1861), " Godfrey of Bouillon on a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land " (1861), " Galileo in Prison " (1864), and " The Death of Alexander the Great " (unfinished), his last great work. He also executed a number of mural paintings for the royal palace in Munich. For Baron von Schach he painted the justly celebrated " Discovery of America." In 1874 he was appointed keeper of the Munich Academy, being after-wards ennobled by the king of Bavaria. Piloty was the fore-most representative of the realistic school in Germany. He was a most successful teacher, and among his more famous pupils may be mentioned Makart, Lenbach, Defregger, Max and Griitzner. He died at Munich on the 21st of July 1886.