 Although his family wanted him to become an engineer, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna from 1851 to 1855, under Johann Nepomuk Geiger and Carl Rahl.He then returned to his hometown where, for the next three years, he worked as an art teacher.After a year of employment with Count Aichelburg in Marschendorf, he married and moved to Munich, where he studied with Karl von Piloty.