loading page

Loading the page ...

Josef Kriehuber

1800–1876, Vienna

The lithographer and portrait painter, Josef Kriehuber, was one of the most prominent artistic figures of the Biedermeier period in Vienna. He received drawing lessons from the age of seven and went on to study at the Vienna Academy from 1813– 18. Having begun working as a draughtsman and lithographer for a local art publisher, Kriehuber devoted himself from around 1825 to portrait lithography, at which he proved extremely successful. His technically brilliant portraits of prominent personalities in Viennese society established his reputation as a portraitist. Kriehuber’s most creative period was between 1830 and 1845, when he turned his attention primarily to watercolour portraits, his clients including virtually the entire upper crust of Habsburg society. During his scant leisure time the artist engaged in landscape painting. From about the mid-1840s, possibly a little later, he exhibited these works with considerable success at the annual exhibitions of the Vienna Academy.