Johann Hermann Carmiencke was an established artist well before he immigrated to the United States in 1851. Born in Hamburg, Germany, he had studied in Dresden, Copenhagen, and Leipzig in the 1830s and had risen to the position of court painter to the King of Denmark. From 1851 until his death in 1867 Carmiencke lived in Brooklyn and New York City. There he was a member of the Artists’ Fund Society and exhibited at the National Academy of Design (1853, 1855, 1857-59, 1866) and the Brooklyn Art Association (1859-68). He also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. Stylistically his American landscapes are allied to those of the artists of the Hudson River School, and, like them, he often painted views of upstate New York. He also exhibited numerous European views in American exhibitions.