In Italy

In 1816, he took the traditional study trip to Rome. As his sister Augusta had recently married Friedrich Overbeck's brother Christian Gerhard, he found quick entry into the inner circles of the Nazareners even though, unlike most of them, he remained a Protestant.^[1] He travelled extensively throughout Italy for many years. In 1819, he established a communal studio with Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld and Friedrich von Olivier in the Palazzo Caffarelli near the Capitoline Hill. He was a notoriously slow worker, however, and a major commission that was not completed in time hastened his departure. The Summer of 1823 was spent in Florence and Pisa, following which he went to Perugia, where he stayed until 1827.^[1] From 1828 to 1831, he worked in the offices of the Prussian Envoy, Christian Charles Josias von Bunsen. Very few works survive from his Italian period.

He moved to Lübeck in 1832, working primarily as a portrait painter. From 1835 to 1841, he lived in Munich and once again became involved in a communal enterprise with Carolsfeld and the Olivier brothers. There, he worked mainly on religious themes and a series of self-portraits. After another short stay in Lübeck, he was hired as an instructor by the University of Kiel, a position that included managing the university's art collection. He became a member of the Kiel Art Association and was on the board of the Gesellschaft zur Sammlung und Erhaltung vaterländischer Alterthümer (a society for the preservation of German antiquities). He died after a long illness.

The Rehbenitzwinkel (mall) in Kiel is named after him.