Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller

Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller (Vienna, 1793 – Hinterbrühl, 1865) was an important Austrian portrait, genre and landscape painter of the Biedermeier period, 1814-1848. Waldmüller was particularly admired for his landscape, which exemplify his belief that art should be based on a close study of nature. Being an advocate of natural observation and plein-air painting, as well as a critic of academic painting, Waldmüller is regarded as being far ahead of his time.

Ferdinand Waldmuller began his art studies at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1807 under Hubert Maurer. After leaving the Academy in 1811, Waldmüller studied portraiture in Presburg, Hungary, and then taught drawing to the children of Count Gyulay in Croatia. In 1813 he returned to Vienna to study portraiture at the Academy. He married the singer Katharina Weidner in 1814, and consequently worked as a scenery designer and portrait painter at his wife's various engagements in Baden, Bruenn and Prague. After his return to Vienna in 1817, Waldmuller spent many hours copying Old Master paintings in Viennese collections.

In 1819, Waldmuller became a professor at the Academy, and in 1820 visited Dresden where he copied Jacob Van Ruisdael (1628-1682) and Antonio Correggio (1494-1534), and then traveled to Leipsig where he had great success with his portraits. By the time he visited Italy in 1825 Waldmuller had a flourishing portrait practice and received royal patronage with his portrait of Franz I (1827 ; Vienna, Historisches Mus.).