Remaining two years in Dusseldorf, Leutze went to Munich to study the works of Cornelius and Kaulbach, and while there painted another scene in the life of the Great Discoverer, “Columbus before the Queen.”  Upon completing this picture he went to Venice, Rome, and the other Italian cities, making careful studies of the masters of that school.  He gave two years to his travels, visiting the Tyrol, and reveling in the magnificent scenery through which he journeyed.  He went into Switzerland, sketching the glorious beauties of its Alps, and reached the Rhine at Strasbourg.  Then, sailing down that beautiful river, he set foot once more in Dusseldorf, glad, as he declared, to end his wanderings in the midst of his friends.  Here he determined to locate himself permanently, and soon after his return he married.

He lived in Dusseldorf for fourteen years, devoting himself assiduously to his art.  His labors were incessant.  Historic subjects make up the vast bulk of his productions during this period, and in his treatment of them he adhered closely to the style of the Dusseldorf school.  The best known of his works during this portion of his career are “The Landing of the Norsemen in America;” “Cromwell and his Daughter;” “The Court of Queen Elizabeth;” “Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn;” “The Iconoclast,” and his famous and brilliant series of pictures illustrative of the events of the American War of Independence.  The most prominent of these were, “Washington Crossing the Delaware;” “Washington at Monmouth;” “Washington at the Battle of Monongahela;” “News from Lexington;” “Sergeant Jasper,” and “Washington at Princeton.”  These are fine paintings, possessing striking characteristics, and are all more or less popular.  “Washington Crossing the Delaware” is perhaps the best known, since it has been engraved, and sold in all parts of the country in that form.

During his absence in Germany, Leutze did not forget the country of his choice, as his devotion to American subjects amply testifies.  When he had won a proud name in his art by his labors in Dusseldorf, and had laid by money enough to justify him in returning to a land where art was in its infancy, and not over-remunerative, he came back to the United States, after an absence of eighteen years, and opened a studio in New York.  He found a vast improvement in the public taste and in the demand for works of art since his departure for the Old World, and, better still, found that his peculiar field, the historic, was the one most suited to the tastes of the American public.

It was his intention, in coming back to this country, to devote the time during which he supposed he would be compelled to wait for orders, to looking around him and familiarizing himself with the changes that had taken place in the Union during his absence; but he was never able to carry out this design, as he had no leisure time.  His European reputation had preceded him hither, and he had scarcely opened his doors in New York before he was obliged to refuse orders, for lack of time to execute them.  His hands were full from the first, and he at once took rank as the most thoroughly popular and accomplished artist in the country.