Leopold Loeffler,[1][2] also spelled Löffler,[3] (October 27, 1827 – February 6, 1898), was a Polish realist painter of the late Romantic period popular in the second half of the 19th century under the foreign partitions of Poland.

[2] A member of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts since 1866 and at the height of his artistic career,[3] Leoffler was invited to Kraków by Polish national painter Jan Matejko in 1877.

However, Leoffler left the imperial capital for Kraków in 1877, having been invited by Matejko to serve as Professor at the School of Fine Arts,[2] expanded in 1873 as an independent institution of higher learning.

Among his most prominent students were future luminaries of the Young Poland movement including Stanisław Wyspiański, Włodzimierz Tetmajer, Leon Kowalski and Wojciech Weiss.

Such ideologically motivated depictions of imperial history of Austria-Hungary did not contribute to Loeffler's popularity in his native land under the foreign domination.