From 1802 to 1805 he attended the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the master class of Heinrich Füger. Stieler's portrait style was most especially shaped during his work in the Parisian atelier of François Gérard, a student of Jacques-Louis David.
In 1808, he established himself as an independent portraitist in the city of Frankfurt and in 1810 travelled through Italy. From 1812 he worked at the court of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria.