Friedrich Dürck was the son of a wealthy merchant who lost his fortune in the post-Napoleonic turmoil through bad speculation and was finally happy to find work as an inspector of the royal hunting lodge Hubertusburg.

In 1822 his uncle, the royal Bavarian court painter Joseph Stieler, invited him to further his education in Munich under his direction.

Although the then director Johann Peter von Langer initially considered him not mature enough for the Antiquities Hall, Stieler brought the young Dürck to the Munich Academy two years later.

After his return to Germany he lived in Munich and portrayed numerous personalities of public life and the Bavarian court, including King Ludwig I in 1858.

In 1861, Ludwig I commissioned Dürck to create two more portraits for the Gallery of Beauties in Nymphenburg Palace.