Ernst Ferdinand Oehme

He originally attended the Friedrichstadt teacher training college and worked as an assistant to a "Torschreiber" (a combination gate keeper and tax collector).

[1] After beginning as an auto-didact, with some help from Carl Wagner, he enrolled at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1819, where he studied with the Danish painter Johan Christian Clausen Dahl, who had recently settled there.

[2] With financial assistance from Crown Prince Friedrich Augustus of Saxony, he was able to continue his studies in Italy,[1] where he gravitated towards the German community and made lifelong friendships with Ludwig Richter, Carl Gottlieb Peschel and Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld,[2] although the Nazarene movement had little influence on his work.

Back in Dresden, he received orders from Johann Gottlob von Quandt and the Crown Prince, who had him create paintings for a "Galerie vaterländischer Landschaften" (Gallery of Patriotic Landscapes).

In the 1840s, he found an important patron in retired Major Friedrich Anton Serre [de], whose home was a significant gathering point for artists, writers and musicians.