He was born to a family of wealthy Transylvanian Saxon merchants, and pursued that trade until he was twenty-nine. At that time, his interest in art led him to enroll at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, where he studied for two years, then transferred to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he studied with the history painter, Johann Caspar Herterich. While there, he was also influenced by the works of Wilhelm Leibl, Max Liebermann and Fritz von Uhde."Friedrich Miess: erster "freier Künstler" Siebenbürgens", an exhibition review by Gudrun-Liane Ittu from the Siebenbürgische Zeitung (2004).
