Julius Köckert was born in Leipzig in 1827 as the son of an opera singer. He began his artistic training in Koblenz and Cologne and continued it in 1843 at the Academy in Prague with the genre painter Christian Ruben.

Köckert moved to Bavaria in 1948, where he settled in Munich after a stay in Frauenchiemsee. He was known for his genre paintings situated in the Bavarian mountains, which were widely distributed through engravings and woodcuts. Köckert died in 1918.