Johann Peter Krafft

self-portrait, circa 1820

Johann Peter Krafft (15 September 1780 – 28 October 1856) was a German-Austrian painter.

Krafft was born in Hanau, Hesse. At the age of ten, he began his art studies at the Hanau Akademie. In 1799, he moved to Vienna and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts for three years under the tutelage of Heinrich Füger. From 1802 to 1808, he studied in Paris, with Jacques-Louis David and François Gérard, and then in Rome. On his return to Vienna, he became a successful professional painter, producing numerous portraits.^[1] He also painted various battle scenes, from both the contemporary Napoleonic wars and earlier times, his depictions tending to present the Habsburg cause in a positive and heroic way.

In 1828, Krafft became director of the Imperial and Royal Picture Gallery in Belvedere Palace.^[2]

Johann Peter Krafft died at the age of 76 in Vienna, where he was buried at the Zentralfriedhof.

References

1. ↑ Krafft, (Johann) Peter, an excerpt from the Grove Dictionary of Art.
2. ↑ The Imperial Art Collections at the Belvedere, website of the Belvedere Palaces.

Krafft's painting of the 1566 Siege of Szigetvár, a key event of the Ottoman–Habsburg wars.

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