[2][3][4] His mother, Catarina Dahl, is assumed to have made many silent sacrifices to give Michael the opportunity of a good education, so that his talent was not to be wasted.

[5] According to letters written by Michael from Rome to his mother back in Sweden, she had raised him and his sister in an old-fashioned way and in the spirit of Christianity.

[5] At the age of at least 15 years, Dahl had to decide where he was going to study art, though the only options in Sweden at the time were an apprenticeship in the Painters' Guild or joining the Martin Hannibal and David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl group.

[6] Dahl received his first lessons in art in 1674 from the Hungarian-born drawing-master Martin Hannibal, who had been requested to come to Sweden from Italy by the prominent Swedish painter David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl to aid him in the foundation of a portrait academy and to teach students and amateurs the first elements of painting.

The students were first under the leadership of Hannibal to learn the basics of painting, and if they showed skill, they had the chance of being picked out to continue their study with Ehrenstrahl.

[7] The only competition of the same league as the Hannibal and Ehrenstrahl group, was Martin Mijtens the Elder, who did not settle in Stockholm until 1681 and was therefore not an option for Dahl in the mid-seventies.

Though it is not fully confirmed, there are assumptions that the teaching Dahl received from Hannibal was finished before they ever had permission from the authorities in Sweden to open a portrait academy.

[9] The earliest trace of Dahl's activity in England is a portrait of Samuel Clarke, which he copied from White's engraving the same year as it was made.

White helped Dahl expand his network in London and he soon came in contact with the man who is probably responsible for the greatest impact on his development, Godfrey Kneller.

Tilson was from a highly respected family and had earlier studied under the Court portrait painter Sir Peter Lely.

[11] Like many of the younger generation of French painters, Dahl and Tilson decided to continue on to Venice[11] then Rome.

David Richter the Elder who Dahl had studied with at Ehrenstrahl's, was converted when he visited Rome a few years earlier, in 1679.

[14] Christina seems to have given her consent, as a passport for a journey Rome–London was issued on 29 October to Henry Tilson, just over three weeks after Dahl wrote the letter to his mother.

[16] After the departure from Rome, the two painters were to be found briefly in Frankfurt in July 1688; there Dahl met the young Swedish nobleman Claes Ekeblad of Stola who paid him a ducat to paint for him for three weeks.