Karl Vesque von Puettlingen (1805-1887) was born in Vienna in 1805. He was the youngest son of the Imperial and Royal First Court Library Curator and Councilor Johann von Vesque from his marriage to Theresia von Leenheer, and brother of the composer Johann Freiherrn Vesque von Püttlingen, famous under the name of Hoven . Since he showed great talent for the visual arts at an early stage, especially in composition, he was allowed to study art. The first lesson in drawing he received from the brilliant Peter Fendi [vol. IV, p. 173), then he attended the painting schools of Waldmueller and Amerling. Later, he went to Munich and became influenced by the works of his friend Schwind and subsequently began painting in similar direction. In 1836 he appeared in public for the first time in the exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts with an oil painting. A stubborn ailment of the nervous system, which seized the young artist, no longer allowed him to practice the art in this strenuous direction and forced him to give up painting in oil, whereupon he turned to watercolors.
From then on he remained active in this field and created a large number of poetic and sensual compositions in which he presented now scenes from the rich world of legends, now imaginative personifications of the forces of nature; E.g .: gnomes in an iron hammer; the dilapidated mill with the ghosts; rising fog in the high mountains; the dancing Willis; the locust worms.
Most of these watercolors are owned by private individuals. With active participation he followed the artistic endeavors of his time, which took a great boom in their gradual transformation, and in his delight in beautiful works of art also put together a collection of copperplate engravings containing many valuable and rare sheets.
Literature: "Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich" (Biographical Encyclopedia of the Austrian Empire) (abbreviated "Wurzbach" from the author's surname; translated from German; see our last photograph), Vol. 50, p.207