Franz Hanfstaengl

Franz Seraph Hanfstaengl (1 March 1804 in Baiernrain [de] near Bad Tölz – 18 April 1877 in Munich) was a Bavarian painter, lithographer, and photographer.

[1] Hanfstaengl originated from a commoner family and in 1816 came on the recommendation of the town-school-teachers into the drawing-class of the leave-day school at Munich led by Hermann Joseph Mitterer.

[2] In 1833, he founded in Munich a lithographic establishment of his own, which he operated until 1868, and to which he later attached a fine art printing shop and (in 1853) a photographic workshop.

Later, he became court photographer and produced portraits of distinguished persons, amongst others of the young King Ludwig II, of Franz Liszt, Otto von Bismarck and Empress Elisabeth of Austria.

He influenced his brother-in-law, the Austrian physician, inventor and politician Norbert Pfretzschner senior in the evolving of the photographic dry-plate in 1866.