At the age of twelve he moved with his father, who entered Russian service as a captain, to Saint Petersburg, where he studied drawing at the Art Academy classes as a guest student.

Thanks to his father's social contacts in the court of the Tsar, in the summer of 1802 he accompanied the young Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1786–1859) and granddaughter of Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg, to the Thuringian cultural city of Weimar, where the Tsar's daughter two years later married Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1783–1853).

The poet Friedrich Schiller was a family friend who at once recognized De Steuben's artistic talent and instilled in him his political ideal of free self-determination regardless of courtly constraints.

After two years of preparation, in February 1805 Steuben enrolled in the prestigious École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, where he learned from renowned teachers, including Jacques-Louis David and Pierre-Paul Prud'hon.

Alexander von Humboldt strongly encouraged the efforts of the Steuben family to establish themselves artistically and economically: in long letters Humboldt repeatedly asked for support for De Steuben, soliciting artistic jobs for him, including from the Prussian Minister Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein and Duchess Helene of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

To secure his family financially, he took a job as an art teacher at the École Polytechnique, where he briefly trained Gustave Courbet.

De Steuben died in 1856 at the age of 68 years in his adopted hometown of Paris; he's interred into the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

[2] Steuben's son Joseph Alexander was taught painting by his father, and used his parents' close ties to the Russian art scene.