Robert Büchtger was born in St. Petersburg into a family of Courland Germans. He spent his childhood in Riga, where he studied at the Polytechnic High School. In 1879 Büchtger entered the Imperial Academy of Arts and then continued his studies at the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts. He then joined the Munich Academy of Arts, where he studied art with Schleich and Roubaud.

In 1887 Büchtger went to Paris and then to Breslau, where he worked as a freelance artist. Robert Büchtger travelled a lot through Russia and explored the peoples of the empire. He visited the Caucasus, from where he brought back many works....