Brief Biography-Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, of the Biedermeier period, was born in Vienna in 1793. His parents, who preferred him to enter the church, disinherited him when he took up painting. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts for a short time and found a position as drawing master to the children of Count Gyulay in Zagreb to help him over. He became a professor of painting at the Academy in 1829. Waldmüller was a portraitist and still-life painter; however, his realist landscapes stood out above all other works, particularly his naturalist paintings of trees. One of his most famous portraits was of Ludwig van Beethoven. When he was in London, Queen Victoria bought thirty-one of his paintings, of which only two remain in Osborne House. Besides painting still-lifes, he painted genre scenes, and some of his work is plein-air in the description. Waldmüller never quite agreed with the academic views of the Academy; however, in 1865, Waldmüller received a knighthood, and his works became an influence on many great artists after him. He died in Hinterbrühl in 1865. His paintings hang in the numerous galleries of Germany and Austria.