Franz Hanfstaengl

1804–1877

At the age of 12, Franz Hanfstaengl (German, 1804-1877) attended a drawing-class and was instructed in lithography. From 1819 to 1825 he studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. In 1826 Hanfstaengl went to Dresden, and started copying the canvases of the Dresden Gemäldegalerie (Portrait Gallery) in lithographs, a project he completed in 1852. He returned to Munich in 1833 and founded his own lithographic studio, to which he later added a fine art printing shop and in 1853 also a photographic workshop. Portraying Munich high society in lithographs and photographic portraits, Hanfstaengl gained much popularity. He became court photographer and produced portraits also of the aristocracy. At the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris he won a gold-medal for the demonstration of retouched photographs; he is thus considered the inventor of retouching the photographic negative.