Carl Fredrik Aagaard was born in Denmark and studied painting at the Danish Royal Academy during the time Copenhagen was the center of a spectacular resurgence of the arts led by the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and the painter Eckersberg. Carl Aagaard began his career towards the end of this great period in Denmark, but was instructed by the country's great artists while at the Academy. It was his final teacher though, the landscape painter Peter Skoovgaard, that was to be the most influential. In 1857, Aagaard exhibited his oil paintings for the first time to great success and continued to exhibit paintings and trips to Switzerland and Italy helped to perfect his style.