Career
He was of German-speaking Austrian descent in the bilingual Kingdom of Bohemia. His mother was from Czechoslovakian peasant family, that lived in Přestanice (a village in Bohemia, now part of Hlavňovice). According to the Grove Dictionary of Art and other sources, Brandl was born into a craftsman’s family (his father seems to have been a goldsmith) and apprenticed around 1683–1688 to Kristián Schröder (1655–1702).
Brandl employed strong chiaroscuro, areas of heavy impasto and very plastic as well as dramatic figures.
The National in Prague, has an entire hall devoted to the artist"s works, including the wonderful "Bust of an Apostle" from some time before 1725. The artist is a distant ancestor of both contemporary Austrian painter Herbert Brandl and contemporary American-Swiss painter Mark Staff Brandl.
