Johann Peter Krafft

From 1828 until his death, Johann Peter Krafft lived in the Belvedere. He was director of the imperial picture gallery housed in the palace and its castle commandant, so the palace where his own paintings hang today was then in his care.

He was born in Hanau in Hesse in 1780, the son of an enamel painter, and came to Vienna at 19 to study history painting under Heinrich Füger, the Academy's leading teacher. In 1802 he went on to Paris and worked with Jacques-Louis David and François Gérard, the great painters of Napoleonic France. Back in Vienna from 1805, he made his name with scenes of the wars against Napoleon, joined the Academy in 1813 and became its professor of history painting in 1823.

The court took notice. In 1824 he was commissioned to paint the audience waiting room in the imperial chancellery wing of the Hofburg, and between 1828 and 1832 he covered its walls with three large scenes from the life of Emperor Francis I, using encaustic, painting with hot wax, a technique then in fashion again. Two show public moments, the emperor's return from Pressburg in 1809 and his entry into Vienna after the Peace of Paris in 1814. The third shows his first drive out after a long, serious illness in 1826. The Belvedere also owns his canvas of the 1814 entry.