Johann Christian Brand

1722 – 1795

Austrian painter, part of a family of painters. He was the son of Christian Hilfgott Brand, from whom he received his first instruction in landscape painting. In 1736 he became a pupil at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna. In 1751-56 he was in the service of Nikolaus VIII, Graf Pálffy, on his estates in Hungary and at his residence in Bratislava. During this period he painted his earliest-known veduta, Landscape near Devin Castle, at the Confluence of the Morava and the Danube (National Gallery, Prague). After returning to Vienna, Brand was commissioned in 1758 by the imperial family to paint a series of four scenes of a Heron Hunt in the Region of Laxenburg (Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna). These were the first great studies from nature of the area around Vienna, recognizable in its topographical features and characteristic atmosphere. They are bird's-eye views, whereas in the two large vedute Lake of Neusiedl (1764) and Bruck Castle (1765; both in private collections), the observer's standpoint is a hill with a view of the wide plain, so that the horizon is lowered. Brand became Kammermaler in 1765, member of the Academy in 1769 as well as councilor and honorary professor, and finally in 1772 professor of landscape drawing. In 1786 he took over the instruction in landscape painting at the Viennese porcelain factory.

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