Carl Joseph Agricola

(born 1779 - died 1852)

Agricola received his first training in Karlsruhe but transferred, at the age of twenty four, to the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, where he studied with the then director, Friedrich Heinrich Fuger, the principal Austrian Neo-classical painter and miniaturist. Agricola received numerous awards at the academy, and soon became a leading portraitist in Vienna, in addition to producing portrait miniatures and supplying the famous Vienna porcelain manufacture with designs.

Among his patron were the Count Moritz von Fries, members of whose family he portrayed (now Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien), and other members of the Viennese aristocracy and bourgeoisie. He was also appointed painter to the Duke of Reichstadt and, in 1836 became a member of the Vienna Academy.