At first the painter was a pupil of his father Christian Friedrich Kessler and from 1844 to 1851 he attended the landscape class of Johann Wilhelm Schirmer at the Düsseldorf Art Academy together with Andreas Achenbach and Arnold Böcklin. He quickly had specialized in forest landscapes and views of the high mountains at different times and seasons, yet occasionally he also painted seascapes. Together with Schirmer, who instructed him to study the nature on hikes, Kessler undertook frequent study trips through Hesse. He also traveled to Bavaria, the Middle Mountains, Tyrol and northern Italy as well as Switzerland and Holland.

His works can be found, among others, at the Staatliches Museum in Brunswick, at the Stiftung Moritzburg in Halle (Saale) or at the Von der Heydt-Museum in Wuppertal.