He abandoned sculpture temporarily, but his new position provided a wider field for improvement, and he soon used the opportunity and practiced his art in his spare hours.

Queen Louisa of Prussia, surprising him one day in the act of modeling her features in wax, sent him to study at the Prussian Academy of Art.

Not long afterward, in 1804, Count Sandrecky gave Rauch the means to complete his education at Rome, where Wilhelm von Humboldt, Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen befriended him.

The statue, representing the queen in a sleeping posture, was placed in a mausoleum in the grounds of Charlottenburg and procured great fame and a European reputation for the artist.

There were, among others, Bülow, Yorck and Scharnhorst at Berlin, Blücher at Breslau, Maximilian at Munich, Francke at Halle, Dürer at Nuremberg, Luther at Wittenberg, and Grand Duke Paul Friedrich at Schwerin.