Christian von Ehrenfels
Christian von Ehrenfels was born on 20 June 1859 in Rodaun near Vienna and grew up at his father's castle Brunn am Walde in Lower Austria. He joined secondary school in Krems and first studied at the Hochschule für Bodenkultur in Vienna and then changed to the Universität Wien.
Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich
He was born at Weimar, where he was brought up early to the profession of art by his father Johann Georg, then painter of miniatures to the court of the duke. Dietrich's sister was painter Maria Dorothea Dietrich.
Having been sent to Dresden to perfect himself under the care of Johann Alexander Thiele, he had the good fortune to finish in two hours, at the age of eighteen, a picture which attracted the attention of the king of Saxony. Augustus II was so pleased with Dietrich's readiness of hand that he gave him means to study abroad, and visit in succession the chief cities of Italy and the Netherlands. There he learned to copy and to imitate masters of the previous century with a versatility that was truly surprising. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, to whom he had been recommended, did not hesitate to call him the Raphael of landscape. Yet in this branch of his practice he merely imitated Salvator Rosa and Allaert van Everdingen.