Friedrich Wilhelm Moritz (1783–1855) was born at Herborn in Switzerland. He was a watercolourist and drawing master, specialising in highly detailed topographical views of Switzerland and Italy.
His work in the early 19th century was part of the burgeoning fashion for illustrated travel annuals, recreating popular Grand Tour landscapes and cultural landmarks for dissemination in print: bringing to life buildings and places with an immersive attention to detail. The inclusion of small staffage figures—bystanders, onlookers and local people going about their daily life–gives a sense of the grand scale of the landscape or site.
Moritz's work in particular helped shape the idealised vision of Switzerland in the 19th century European imagination. In Britain similar material could be found in Thomas Roscoe's 'The Tourist in Switzerland and Italy', first published in 1830, with illustrated plates after drawings by Samuel Prout. In Switzerland the production of topographical images went on to be strongly associated with the publishing company of Rudolf Dikenmann (1793–1884) and his son Johann Rudolf Dikenmann (1832–1888), who became prolific printers of aquatints of Swiss views in the mid- to late 19th century.
Moritz settled at Neuchâtel and is especially associated with that town. His son, William Morritz (1816–1860), also became a landscape artist.
