Ferdinand Heilbuth was born in Hamburg on June 27, 1826, the son of a rabbi. At a young age he moved to Munich to study, rapidly moving on to Antwerp, and then to Paris c. 1843-1846. Once in Paris, he studied under Marc-Gabriel-Charles Gleyre, a history and genre painter, and Paul Delaroche.

His trips to Rome beginning in 1854-55, and later during the 1860s and early 1870s, inspired the much of his early work, which consisted primarily of genre scenes with Italian Cardinals. After leaving his homeland around the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Heilbuth never returned and became a naturalized French citizen in 1878. It was during this period in the 1870s that the artist shifted his focus away fr...