Stephan Dorfmeister

Stephan Dorfmeister or, in Hungarian, Dorffmaister István (1729 – 29 May 1797) was a painter of German origin who worked primarily in Burgenland and Transdanubia (now part of Hungary).

[1] He was born in Vienna, the eldest of the five children of Johann Christof Georg Dorfmeister (1705–1789) and his wife Elisabeth, née Millner.

Around 1762, he moved to a home near Ödenburg, but never became a Bürger (citizen) there; possibly to avoid compulsory military service.

His next eldest, Joseph Paul Stephan Dorfmeister (born 1770), remained with him in his workshop and completed his last commission; the altarpiece at the church in Magotsch (1798).

Despite his thriving business, he was plagued by financial problems his entire life and left his family deeply in debt.