He returned to Munich in 1866. The following year, he won a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle and went to Spain for one year, accompanied by his student, Ernst Friedrich von Liphart, to make more copies of the Old Masters for Schack. Upon returning, his career as a portrait painter began in earnest. His breakthrough came in 1869, when he won a gold medal at the Glaspalast, despite being up against many fashionable French painters. After 1870, he began making visits to Vienna to develop a market for his paintings there, which even survived the Panic of 1873. It is also said that he travelled there frequently because he had a passion for Maria Beccadelli di Bologna, which was never returned.