Franz Xaver Winterhalter. Franz Xaver Winterhalter was a German painter and lithographer, known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century.
His name has become associated with fashionable court portraiture. Among his best known works are Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting and the portraits he made of Empress Elisabeth of Austria.
Franz Xaver Winterhalter was born in the small village of Menzenschwand, in Germany's Black Forest in the Electorate of Baden, on 20 April 1805. He was the sixth child of Fidel Winterhalter, a farmer and resin producer in the village, and his wife Eva Meyer, a member of a long established Menzenschwand family.
His father was of peasant stock and was a powerful influence in his life. Of the eight brothers and sisters, only four survived infancy.
Throughout his life Franz Xaver remained very close to his family, in particular to his brother Hermann, who was also a painter. After attending school at a Benedictine monastery in St. Blasien, Winterhalter left Menzenschwand in 1818 at the age of 13 to study drawing and engraving. He trained as a draughtsman and lithographer in the workshop of Karl Ludwig Schüler in Freiburg im Breisgau. In 1823, at the age of 18, he went to Munich, sponsored by the industrialist Baron von Eichtal. In 1825, he was granted a stipend by Ludwig I, Grand Duke of Baden and began a course of study
His name has become associated with fashionable court portraiture. Among his best known works are Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting and the portraits he made of Empress Elisabeth of Austria.
Franz Xaver Winterhalter was born in the small village of Menzenschwand, in Germany's Black Forest in the Electorate of Baden, on 20 April 1805. He was the sixth child of Fidel Winterhalter, a farmer and resin producer in the village, and his wife Eva Meyer, a member of a long established Menzenschwand family.
His father was of peasant stock and was a powerful influence in his life. Of the eight brothers and sisters, only four survived infancy.
Throughout his life Franz Xaver remained very close to his family, in particular to his brother Hermann, who was also a painter. After attending school at a Benedictine monastery in St. Blasien, Winterhalter left Menzenschwand in 1818 at the age of 13 to study drawing and engraving. He trained as a draughtsman and lithographer in the workshop of Karl Ludwig Schüler in Freiburg im Breisgau. In 1823, at the age of 18, he went to Munich, sponsored by the industrialist Baron von Eichtal. In 1825, he was granted a stipend by Ludwig I, Grand Duke of Baden and began a course of study
Wikipedia ...