He came from a family that had been raised to the nobility in 1780, and his father was a member of the Governing Council of the Electorate of Hesse. From 1843 to 1847, he studied at the Kunsthochschule Kassel,[1] then joined the landscape painting class of Johann Wilhelm Schirmer at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf which, with a short break for military service, he attended until 1854. From 1849, he was a member of the Düsseldorf artists' society Malkasten (Paintbox).