 After Emil's death in 1867, his father Karl and uncle Robert took over the studio and, when he was old enough, he received his first training there along with his brothers Emil, Robert and Hugo, who would also become sculptors of some note.At the age of fifteen, his father took him on a study trip to Rome.After his father's death in 1885, he went to Berlin, where he worked in the studios of Albert Wolff and Reinhold Begas, passing the craftsman examination at Koblenz in 1887.