Historical landscape painter Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and illustrious landscape artists Hans Frederick Gude and Andreas Achenback highly influenced Herzog’s painting style and encouraged him to paint the rugged wilderness he loved with realistic detail and a high finish. Herzog traveled through Europe during the 1850s and 1860s painting the animals, waterfalls and stormy clouds over dramatic landscapes in luminous light, exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1863 (where he won a prize) and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1863). In 1872 he painted in Yosemite and in Mexico. By 1869, Herzog was a popular painter of means. He had sold paintings all over Europe and colleagues and critics alike were impressed that among his clientele were the the Countess of Flanders, Emperor Alexander of Russia, Queen Victoria, Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg-Gothe, and other members of royal families.

When Herzog died in West Philadelphia at 100, the prolific painter left over 1,000 canvases to his heirs. Always in pursuit of the most beautiful, idyllic view, Herzog extensively traveled in search of it. Although he never dated his work (thus, it is difficult to place them chronologically or stylistically), he painted landscapes, marines and pastorals that uplifted the Hudson River tradition, and his work is reminiscent of Albert Bierstadt and Worthington Whittredge (who also studied in Dusseldorf).

Museums: Metropolitan Museum of Art; National Museum of American Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; New York Public Library; Crocker Museum; Cincinnati Art Museum; Reading Museum; Hanover, Goth and Mulhouse Museums; Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley; Memorial Hall, Philadelphia; Orlando Museum; Samuel P. Harn Museum; Smithsonian, Washington D.C.; White House, Washington D.C; Oakland Museum; Birmingham Museum