Brunner worked until 1848 almost exclusively for King Ferdinand I of Austria, painting watercolours with botanical and scientific subjects.

He painted our painting at the age of 77, one year before his death: this most daring work must be seen as his artistic testament.

 

 

Austrian painter

Vienna 1788 – 1866 Vienna

 

Important stil life (and landscape) painter active in Vienna.

 

Pupil of Johann Baptist Drechsler (1766 – 1811) at the Vienna Academy. Drechsler was a specialist in flower and fruit still lifes, who had been strongly influenced by the Dutch flower painter Jan van Huysum (1682 – 1749).

 

In 1815 the Austrian Crown Prince Ferdinand (1793 – 1875) commissioned our painter to produce watercolours with subjects referring to natural history. Brunner was appointed Royal Painter in 1835, when the crown prince became Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria. The Emperor, known for his weak physical health and mental condition, was forced to abdicate in 1848 and was succeeded by his nephew Franz Joseph I.

 

Brunner produced more than 3500 watercolours with botanical and scientific subjects, most of these for Emperor Ferdinand I. He also produced free artistic works in oils, especially flower still lifes. 

 

In 1830 he stayed in Russia and in Poland (Warsaw): he had a lot of success there with his flower paintings.

 

Our painter’s son, Leopold II (Vienna 1822 – 1869 Vienna) is a very little known and not very talented landscape and animal painter. 

 

 

Because it is such a strange, poetic and simply beautiful painting: high in the Austrian Alps, against a bare mountain slope, our painter has found some wild plants that grew there. Amidst them he has laid on the ground an extremely colourful bouquet of flowers.

 

Because Brunner painted this incredible composition, clearly his best and most daring oil painting, at the age of 77, one year before passing away. This is his artistic testament.