Josef Heideloff
1747–1830 · Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire
The story
Josef Heideloff spent much of his working life painting coats of arms for the Imperial Court Chancery in Vienna, the chancery of the Holy Roman Empire. Born in Mainz, he trained at the Vienna Academy from 1771 and held the post of heraldic painter until 1806, the year the empire itself was dissolved. Alongside the heraldry he painted many gouaches of castles and palaces.
The Belvedere's panel from 1779 is a wide view of the grape harvest on the edge of Vienna, looking out toward Klosterneuburg, the Leopoldsberg and Bisamberg hills and the town of Korneuburg on the Danube. Heideloff died in 1830 in Landstraße, then a suburb of Vienna.
