He was the son of a house-tiler, but from his youth had a bent towards art. His having become a sergeant in the army, his colonel once called upon him to copy a few landscapes, which, though his first attempts at painting, were so successful that he thenceforth devoted himself exclusively to art. He pursued oil painting at the same time, and studied from nature and the old Dutch masters. His works were at first small landscapes and views of towns, but later on he took to woody scenes, and especially oak forests with cattle. His son was the painter Friedrich Georg Weitsch.
