After the failure of the German revolutions of 1848–1849, he went into exile in London. There, he had his own workshop for five years; creating decorative works at what is now the Victoria and Albert Museum. He married one of his fellow exiles; Emma Schmitthenner-Stockhausen, a teacher from Rheinland. They had two sons; Ernst Wolfgang, who became a writer, and Johann Frank, who followed in his father's footsteps as an artist. As soon as they could, they returned to Germany and settled in Dresden. In 1869, he was recruited by Francisco Fernández Rodella, Chile's Consul General in Paris, to become Director of the Academia de Pintura, succeeding its founder, the Italian-born artist Alejandro Ciccarelli, who had retired.