Johann Nepomuk Hoechle

Johann Nepomuk Hoechle (16 September 1790, Munich - 12 December 1835, Vienna) was an Austrian painter and lithographer who specialized in scenes from military actions and current events.

Biography His father was Johann Baptist Hoechle (1754-1832), an artist from Switzerland who later became court painter for the Habsburgs. When he was still a child, he was apprenticed to the engraver and etcher, Ferdinand Kobell, who died shortly after, in 1799. The following year, his father took him to Vienna. From 1804 to 1808, he was enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied history painting with Heinrich Friedrich Füger and landscape painting with Michael Wutky. His later career as a battle painter probably came from the influence of the French marine and military artist, Ignace Duvivier (1758-1832), who Hoechle met while he was visiting Vienna.

In 1814, after further studies in military art, he made more sketches at the scenes of major events, on behalf of Austrian Emperor Francis I, and turned them into paintings at his studio.

In 1833, he was chosen to succeed his father as court painter, but died only two years later.