Background
According to most accounts, Stroehling was born in 1768 in Düsseldorf.
According to most accounts, Stroehling was born in 1768 in Düsseldorf.
He worked in oils and in miniature and painted a number of royal portraits. However, one biographer states that he was a Russian of German descent, educated at the expense of Catherine the Great. He worked in Paris, Mannheim, Frankfurt, and Mainz, and by about 1792 was studying in Italy.
Early in 1796 he was in Vienna and the same year travelled to Saint St. Petersburg to attend the coronation of Paul I of Russia, taking with him a retinue of servants and representing himself as an English nobleman.
He subsequently gained much portrait work in Saint St. Petersburg and stayed there until 1801. From 1803 to 1807 he was in London, where like Johann Zoffany he foresaw significantly better opportunities to make his name and fortune than at a German court, and was there again from 1819 to 1826.
He exhibited his work at the Royal Academy between 1803 and 1826. Stroehling was uncertainly reported to have died in London about 1826, and no new work was exhibited after that date.