Franz Richard Unterberger was the eldest son of an Austrian art dealer. At the Düsseldorf Academy he met Andreas and Oswald Achenbach, who inspired him to an impressionist direction in his work. With Felix Ziem, Unterberger shared a great love for traveling, especially in Italy, where he recorded Venetian palaces and picturesque corners. Unterberger must have been an elegant, well-traveled man with impeccable manners. When he was not traveling he lived in Brussels and in the summer in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris, where he died in 1902.