Friedrich Rosenberg was a German draughtsman, landscape painter and engraver.
Friedrich Rosenberg was born in Danzig, the son of a spice merchant, and grew up with six siblings. In addition to an apprenticeship with a painter, he also studied landscape painting. In 1778, he went on a journey that took him via Hamburg to Switzerland, where he stayed in Zurich for four years. Here he made the acquaintance of Johann Caspar Lavater, Johann Heinrich Füssli and Salomon Gessner. Around 1783, he provided several Swiss views for the work Vues remarquables de Montagnes de la Suisse, published in Amsterdam in 1785 by the Swiss painter and writer Rudolf Samuel Henzi (1731-1803) and the French graphic artist Charles-Melchior Descourtis (1753-1820).
After further travels through Italy, France and Holland, he settled in Hamburg in 1794 and in Altona the following year. Here he became friends with the painters Johann Friedrich Eich and Jes Bundsen. In 1796, he created eight views of Hamburg as colored etchings, which became interesting Hamburgiana. With Bundsen, he opened a Sunday school for young painters that existed for 25 years, and gave further drawing lessons in Hamburg and Altona. In addition, he founded the Altona Art Exhibition with Bundsen and the landscape painter Anton Carl Dusch. To avoid financial difficulties, he took on the role of a mortician in Altona in 1823. Rosenberg was married from 1809 to Friederike Dorothea Bong (b. December 2, 1783; d. July 26, 1822), the daughter of a well-known Hamburg surgeon and obstetrician.
His students included Ludwig Matthias Anton Brammer, Johann Heinrich Sander, Adolph Friedrich Vollmer and Louis Gurlitt. Works by his hand can be found in the collections of the Kunsthalle Hamburg and the Staatliches Museum Schwerin.