[5] Fendi met Joseph Barth, an art collector and the personal ophthalmologist of Joseph II, and through Barth's connections to other influential artists, in 1818 Fendi found a job at the Imperial Gallery of Coins and Antiquities,[1][6][7] where he worked as a draughtsman and engraver.

[8] Fendi received a gold medal in 1821 for his oil painting Vilenica,[9] and was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1836.

[8] Both nobles and commoners occasionally employed Fendi to give instruction in drawing and painting, and later in life teaching took up more of his time; his pupils included Carl Schindler and Johann Friedrich Treml [de].

[1] Fendi painted in oil and watercolours, as well as working with printing, etching, lithography and wood carving.

Other influences on Fendi's artistic development included the works of Italians such as Giovanni Bellini, Tintoretto, Titian, and Paolo Veronese, which he saw on a trip to Venice in 1821.