Career
Youth and travels to Italy
He came from a wealthy aristocratic family. As part of his education, he made frequent visits to the picture gallery at the Schloss Belvedere, where he decided that he would like to be a painter. He continued to Rome, copying paintings and producing scenes from nature, then returned home in 1825.
Early career
In Vienna, he continued his artistic studies, but also took classes in philosophy from Friedrich Schlegel and attended lectures on botany.
In 1832, he acquired the lordly estates of Kattau and Missingdorf, near Horn in Lower Austria. He then created a series of altarpieces for the surrounding parish churches, at his own expense, and contributed to their general restoration.
However, he apparently missed the mental stimulation of a large city, selling his properties in 1839 and returning to Vienna. Initially, he was excited by the Revolution of 1848, even going so far as to join the "National Guard", but his aristocratic upbringing reasserted itself and he moved with his family to Klagenfurt, where he started his own art school at the local Lyceum.
Later years
In 1859, once again feeling the need to be a landowner, he acquired estates in Vrbovec and Rakovec, Croatia.
The agricultural land was a good investment, but he and his family were isolated as they didn"t speak any Croatian. At that time, he gave up oil painting and devoted himself entirely to botanical drawings of wild plants. Eventually, his eyesight deteriorated to the point where he couldn"t paint or draw, so he began to write poetry, producing a verse comedy called "Graf Biegler" and two verse dramas.
"Raphael" and "The Oath".
None of them are currently available.
