He attended k.k. cadet school in Lobzowa near Krakow (now Poland). From 1857-1859 he attended the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt (near Vienna). In 1859 he served as a sub-lieutenant in Northern Italy. He participated in the 1859 Battle of Solferino. From 1860-1863 he served at the garrison in Verona, Italy.
In 1862 he started exploratory tours of the South Tyrolian Alps and Hohen Tauern. From 1864-1868 he explored the Adamello-Presanella-Group and the Ortler-Alps.
On June 24, 1866 he was heroic at the Battle of Custozza and was decorated.
In 1868 he was invited by the German geographer August Petermann to participate in the 1869-1870 2nd German Northpolar Expedition ("Germania" under Koldewey ).
In 1871 he participated in the preliminary Austro-Hungarian expedition to Novaya Zemlya, with Karl Weyprecht.
From 1872-1874 he led the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition with Karl Weyprecht.
In 1874 he resigned from the army because of political maneuvers against him and his brother officers' doubts about his discovery and his sledge journeys.
On October 1, 1874, he got 44 Gulden (Austrian currency) for the discovery of Franz Joseph Land. On October 24, 1876, he also received an inheritable knighthood.
In 1877 he married the ex-wife of a banker from Frankfurt, Germany. they later had two children, Jules and Alice.
From 1877-1879 he studied painting at the Städelsches Institut in Frankfurt / Main. From 1880-1882 he continued his study of art at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in München.
From 1884-1890 he worked as a painter in Paris.
In 1890 he divorced his wife, returned to Vienna and founded a painting school for ladies.
In 1895 he planned a trip for painting to Franz-Josef-Fjord (Greenland).
In 1912 he planned (at the age of seventy) an expedition in a submarine to the North Pole.
He died in 1915.