Johann Lorenz Kreul (1765 Erlbach – 1840 Nuremberg) began his studies under G. Ph. Zwinger at the Art School of Nuremberg. Apart from that, he took lessons from Ansbach court artist Friedrich Cotthard Naumann (see his work in our possession).
He received his first lessons from the Bavarian court painter Kobell, partly in copying, partly in drawing from nature, which appealed more to the talented boy. When the father moved to Vienna, the son entered the Academy of Fine Arts there in 1804 (at the age of 14!).
Marie-Thérèse Bourgoin was born in 1785. Already in 1799 she was enlisted to the theater group of the best French theater – the Parisian «Théatre-Français». In a few years, the First Consul took notice of her.
His first marriage was in the Netherlands, before a second marriage on 11 January 1776 at Saint-Eustache, Paris to Élisabeth Louise Vigée. They had one child, Jeanne Julie Louise Lebrun, who in 1800 married Gaëtan Bertrand Nigris, director of the Imperial Theatre in Saint Petersburg.