He was born on 25 May 1782 in the family of a carpenter from Levoca. Before studying at the university he preferred painting. From the famous painter Stunder, he received valuable lessons in the field of portraits of celebrities, as well as help with his first commissions from the Csáky family and the Prešov merchant Steinhübel.
During the stay of Tsar Alexander I in Bardejov Spa he met Count Iljinsky, who invited him to his estate. In 1805 he travelled to St Petersburg, where he spent 19 years as a painter of portraits of the nobility, intelligentsia and people from high military and political circles. He was a member of the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.
In 1817 he married Amalia Bauman, with whom he settled in 1825 in Prešov, where his brothers lived. Here Rombauer painted many realistic portraits of the nobility of Spiš and Šariš and the townspeople of Prešov. In addition to portraits, he also created several religious works for churches in eastern Slovakia and free compositions. His stay in Prešov is commemorated by the oil painting Unbelieving Tomáš in the Evangelical Church of the Holy Trinity, the painting of the electoral coachmen, the veduta View of Prešov or the ceiling painting Amor a Psyché in the house on Hlavná 16. Many of his works are currently in the collections of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava and the Šariš Gallery in Prešov. He lived in Prešov until the end of his life on 12 February 1849. He is buried in the local cemetery.
Source: Regional Library P. O. Hviezdoslav in Prešov; Micro-project. Prešov: Šarišská galéria, 2010.
Photo source: By Janos Rombauer (1782-1849) - Napoleon & Revolution, Free Work, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77726326
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tsarist portrait painter
