Biography

Austrian painter and etcher. He produced many altarpieces and frescoes for churches, monasteries and other Church buildings. He painted many works in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Vienna and Hungary. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna from 1742 until he graduated in 1753. Cimbal became friends with the painter Felix Ivo Leicher and the sculptor Raymond Siess, whom he may have met in Vienna. Siess sponsored some of Cimbal's children at their baptisms.

He decorated many churches and monasteries for the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God in Brno and Feldsberg. In Hungary he worked for Ignác Koller, Bishop of Veszprém, who commissioned frescoes for his palaces in Veszprém and Sümeg, as well as ceiling and wall paintings and altarpieces for the village churches.

His two sons were also painters, Jakob (1778-1834) was at the Vienna Academy in 1796 and he was recorded as an "academic painter" in 1823 in Leopoldstadt, and Johann (1754-after 1808). Both sons assisted their father with his work, as was usual for the time.