Born in Bremen, Germany, Herzog entered Düsseldorf Academy in 1849. He was a pupil of Schirmer, Lessing, Achenbach, and Gude, promoters of a style of realistic landscape painting that emphasized precise, almost mechanical, rendering of nature. His early paintings depict favorite mountain landscapes viewed during his travels to Norway, Switzerland, Italy, and the Pyrenees. Queen Victoria and Czar Alexander II were among his patrons. In 1869, Herzog immigrated to Philadelphia and continued to paint landscapes in rural Pennsylvania, along the Hudson River Valley, and the American West. This work is representative of his naturalistic approach to the landscape and his love of capturing rugged wilderness of a romantic scene.
