Moritz Thausing

The son of a palace official in Schloß Tschischkowitz (modern Čížkovice, near Litoměřice in the Kingdom of Bohemia), Thausing began his academic career as a student of German literature and history.

In 1862 he received an appointment as a library assistant at the Akademie der bildenden Künste, where he also gave general lectures on world and cultural history.

His health declined dramatically after he became interim director of the newly founded Istituto Austriaco di studi storici in Rome.

In this regard he was profoundly influenced by the so-called "experimental method" of the Italian scientist and connoisseur Giovanni Morelli, whom he honored as his "fratello in Raffaele" ("brother in Raphael").

The transition from Morellian connoisseurship to stylistic analysis was conclusively effected by Thausing's students, and in particular by Alois Riegl and Franz Wickhoff, the most important representatives of the Vienna School of art history.