Carl Christian Vogel von Vogelstein

In 1808 he moved to Saint Petersburg, where he set up a studio in the princely and successfully worked producing portraits of nobles and diplomats.

In 1812 Vogel was finally rich enough to make a long-desired grand tour to Italy, stopping off at Berlin and Dresden on the way, where he painted his parents and Franz Pettrich.

He tried to run a middle course between the classicising and romanticising schools then prevailing there, with a style of his own closely drawing on that of Raphael Mengs.

Besides religious paintings, landscapes and anatomical studies, Vogel also produced portraits in Rome, of subjects such as Bertel Thorvaldsen, Lucien Bonaparte and – on behalf of the king of Saxony - Pope Pius VII.

Vogel much enjoyed Rome, as Ringseis illustrates by this story - in 1818 he received a gift of a bottle of 1634 Rheinwein wine (given by crown prince Louis I of Bavaria in thanks for the decoration of a festal hall) by unanimous resolution of his colleagues In 1826 Vogel married Julie Gensiken, a daughter of the writer Wilhelmine Gensicken.