Franz Eybl Biography

Franz Eybl (1806-1880) was an Austrian painter.

Eybl was born in the Viennese suburb of Gumpendorf at Große Steingasse 136 (today Stumpergasse 55). By 1816, at the age of ten, he had already entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, studying under Josef Klieber and Josef Mössmer. Between 1820 and 1823, he studied under Johann Baptist von Lampi and Franz Caucig, reproducing antique statues and casts. Until 1828 he studied history painting under Johann Peter Krafft, and much of his work shows this. In 1825 Eybl won the Academy's Gundel Prize and in 1828 the Lampi Prize. In 1830, he married Antonia Jordan. In 1843, Eybl became a member of the Academy. 

Franz Eybl devoted himself to landscape painting and genre works as well as history painting. After 1840, he became influenced by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller in his use of light. He painted many portraits and counted himself one of the most important portrait painters in 19th-century Austria alongside Friedrich von Amerling. Eybl made over 400 lithographic portraits and is comparable with the prolific Josef Kriehuber in this aspect.

Eybl died at the age of 74 in 1880, at his official residence in Belvedere and was buried at Vienna's famous Zentralfriedhof, where notable figures such as Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert are interred. Eyblweg ("Eybl Way") in Leopoldau, Vienna was named after him in 1933.