Waagen was born in Hamburg, the son of a painter and a nephew and lover of the poet Ludwig Tieck. Having passed through the college of Hirschberg, Silesia (modern Jelenia Góra), he volunteered for service in the Napoleonic campaign of 1813–14, and on his return attended the lectures at Breslau University.[1] He devoted himself to the study of art, which he pursued in the great European galleries, first in Germany, then in the Netherlands and Italy.