Aberli was born on 14 November 1723, in
Winterthur. His father was a watchman. After completing his basic education, he became the student of a local artist named Heinrich Meyer. With his recommendation, in 1741, Aberli was accepted at the drawing school operated by . While studying there, he worked as a decorative painter. In the mid-1740s, he and
Philipp Hieronymus Brinckmann took a trip through the
Bernese Oberland, which stimulated his interest in painting landscapes. In 1747, he married Christina Barbara Janss, from
Saanen. They had only one daughter, who died young. That same year, he succeeded his former teacher Grimm as operator of the drawing school. He often took his students on trips to
lake Geneva,
Lake Biel,
Lake Neuchâtel, and the Oberland. He established his own workshop in the 1750s, together with a publishing company to issue his works. He also trained his employees, including the engraver,
Adrian Zingg, and the
vedutist,
Samuel Hieronymus Grimm. In 1759, he took them to Paris, to study the
Old Masters at the museums, and to show them the famous engraving workshop of
Johann Georg Wille. After returning from Paris, he had a small summer house built in
Köniz and began collecting art. His greatest financial success came with
copper engravings, but he also made a decent profit on his
watercolours. In order to reproduce them, he developed an etching method that came to be known as the "Aberlische Manier". In 1774, he travelled throughout the
Jura Mountains with his colleague,
Sigmund Freudenberger. He was visited by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, on his second trip to Switzerland in 1779. He died on 17 October 1786, aged 62, in
Bern. His business operations were continued by the artist, , while the remainder of his estate was auctioned off. A street in
Biel is named after him. ==Sources==