Joseph Karl Stieler (1781 – 1858)

• Was a German painter.
• Born in the city of Mainz.

• Stieler received some artistic training from his father, August Friedrich Stieler.

• After Mainz had been occupied by French revolutionary troops in 1792, Stieler went to Aschaffenburg.

• Here he met with the later Archbishop Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg, who became his most important patron and sponsor.

• From 1802 to 1805 he attended the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the master class of Heinrich Füger.

• Stieler worked in the Parisian atelier of François Gérard, a student of Jacques-Louis David.

• From 1820 until 1855 he worked as royal court painter for the Bavarian kings.

• Between February and April 1820, he worked on his portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven.

• In 1847 he also painted the portrait of Lola Montez, whose affair with King Ludwig I of Bavaria led to the monarch's abdication the next year.

• Stieler retired in 1855 to live at his country home in Tegernsee.

• He died in Munich three years later.

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