From an old Württemberg family of civil servants, he was the second son of Chief Magistrate in Balingen and privy councilor, Friedrich Christoph von Wächter (1733–1807) and Sibylle Regine Harpprecht (1737–1793).

To this period of his best work belong a "Child Jesus on the Lamb", "Belisarius at the Porta Pinciana at Rome", and "Job and His Friends".

Wachter was a founder of the Brotherhood of St. Luke, a society of those painters who soon after established at Rome a more natural and thoughtful school of painting, known as the Nazarenes.

Wachter finally went to Stuttgart, where he painted "Cimon in Prison", "Ulysses and the Sirens", the "Boat of Life", "Andromache standing at the Urn with Hector's Ashes", the "Greek Muse mourning over the Ruins of Athens", a "Virgin with St. John Sorrowing at the Grave of Christ", etc.

1831 Eberhard von Wachter was awarded as Knight of the Order of the Crown (Württemberg),[3] which was associated with the personal title of nobility.