Thomas Ender

1793 – 1875

Austrian painter. Johann Thomas Ender and his twin brother Johann Nepomuk were born into a Silesian family in Vienna. In 1806 both enrolled in the St-Anne Academy of Fine Arts. From 1810 Thomas studied under the renowned watercolourist Laurenz Janscha. It was here that he started to paint landscapes in the open air. In 1817 his landscapes won the Emperor's gold medal, which in turn earned him the patronage of Prince Metternich. In 1817-1818 he became a draughtsman of the Austrian scientific expedition that travelled to Brazil with the daughter of Emperor Francis I of Habsburg, Leopoldina, who married the crown prince of Brazil, Dom Pedro, the future King Pedro IV of Portugal. During his stay in Brazil, Thomas made hundreds of drawings and watercolours that are to be found in the collection of the Akademie der Künste in Vienna today. In 1832, he married Therese Árvay, daughter of an official of Buda castle. From 1837 we find Thomas in Vienna again as ordinary professor of landscape painting but he often left the city for Italy and the course of the Danube. Thomas Ender got to know Hungary more intimately as a companion of Archduke Johann of Austria on a voyage on the Danube from Vienna through Gala?i to Odessa in 1837. In the next years Thomas made several study trips with his students to the Austrian Alps and South Tirol. In 1847 he went with Archduke Johann to Innsbruck and then to Northern Italy. In 1850 Thomas retired from the Academy on order of the Emperor. The nine-month journey he made to Italy in 1853 was in all probability a farewell gift from Archduke Johann. On is later journey in Upper Hungary Ender made excursions to the High Tatras. Watercolours now kept in the Albertina in Vienna and the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts bear witness to Ender's 1861-1863 visits to Transylvania, Gödöllõ, and Lake Balaton.

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