Tegetthoff was a central battery ship designed by Chief Engineer Josef von Romako.

[1] The ship's namesake, Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, victor of the Battle of Lissa, had proposed building four new ironclads.

These were to be completed by 1878, but poor economic conditions in the early 1870s forced the Austro-Hungarian government to cut back the naval budget.

Austro-Hungarian industry was incapable of supporting the construction of the ship, and significant components had to be ordered from foreign manufacturers, including guns from Germany and armor plating from Britain.

[2] Romako made numerous improvements over earlier central battery ships like Erzherzog Karl and Custoza, including refining the hull shape to reduce the need for curved armor plate.

[5] Tegetthoff was the first ship in the Austrian Navy to be built with an all-steel hull, which allowed for a considerable savings in weight.

Steam was provided by nine fire-tube boilers with three fireboxes apiece that were vented through a pair of funnels on the centerline amidships.

She was initially fitted with a three-masted sailing rig, though this was removed during the modernization, and two heavy fighting masts were installed in its place.

Two years later, another round of trials were carried out with the ship overloaded to 7,918 long tons (8,045 t), and she nevertheless managed 6,706 ihp (5,001 kW) for 13.97 knots (25.87 km/h; 16.08 mph).

Tegetthoff's armor plate amounted to 2,122.5 long tons (2,156.6 t), more than a quarter of the ship's total displacement.

[10] After her reconstruction in the early 1890s, her propulsion system was replaced with a pair of 3-cylinder triple expansion engines built by the German firm Schichau-Werke.

Tegetthoff and an Austro-Hungarian squadron that included the ironclads Custoza, Kaiser Max, Don Juan d'Austria, and Prinz Eugen and the torpedo cruisers Panther and Leopard travelled to Barcelona, Spain, in 1888 to take part in the opening ceremonies for the Barcelona Universal Exposition.

[13] In June and July 1889, Tegetthoff participated in fleet training exercises, which also included the ironclads Custoza, Erzherzog Albrecht, Kaiser Max, Prinz Eugen, and Don Juan d'Austria.

By this time, she was the only remotely modern ironclad in the Austrian fleet, apart from the two newly built barbette ships Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf and Kronprinzessin Erzherzogin Stephanie.

Admiral Maximilian Daublebsky von Sterneck had replaced Pöck, and unable to secure funding for capital ships, instead tried to modernize the Austro-Hungarian fleet by embracing the Jeune École doctrine.