Wagner won the prize of 60 ducats and thanks to Goethe's intercession he was appointed professor of drawing arts at the University of Würzburg.
[1] In Rome, Wagner was first employed as a drawing teacher in the house of Wilhelm von Humboldt, then Prussian envoy to Italy.
Among other things he advised him on the establishment of the Munich Glyptothek and arranged the purchase of the Barberini Faun[3] and the gable figures from the Temple of Aphaea at Aegina.
On behalf of the king he created an extensive relief frieze for the interior of the Walhalla:[5] The Germanic procession from the Caucasus to Central Europe.
In 1841, the King appointed him Central Gallery Director of the Munich Pinakothek, but Wagner immediately asked for his resignation from this post as he did not want to leave Rome.