Legend had it that Germans had more surnames than given names, because Germans did not like inventing new words, nor did anyone like creating new names. Surnames, meanwhile, had been passed down for centuries, and most were related to occupations—there were hundreds of them.
Take John Heinrich Fischer, for example. There could be many people named John Heinrich: his grandfather, father, uncle, the neighbor next door, the blacksmith in the next town, the doctor in a nearby city. Fischer meant fisherman; perhaps, many generations ago, one of his ancestors had made his living catching fish.
But as John Adams had once said: I must study politics and war so that my sons may have the freedom to study philosophy and mathematics.
By John Heinrich Fischer's grandfather's generation, their family had become harbor officials in Danzig. Aside from the eldest son, who had to study law, John Heinrich's father had the opportunity to study art.
When Frederick the Great, Russia, and Austria partitioned Poland, Heinrich's father was brought to Berlin as well. John Heinrich was already eleven at the time, but he was not raised into a Prussian boy. Instead, he became a "delicate" painter.
The king greatly liked his father's work, but had little interest in John Heinrich himself. Thus, this frustrated young painter had no choice but to leave Germany and travel to France for further study.
There was not much information on how he had spent his youth. In any case, he encountered the French Revolution. Exiled nobles desperately needed cash, so they pawned and auctioned off the antiques and famous paintings in their homes. Though the British were very interested in these treasures, not everyone had the nerve to personally travel to France like a certain young earl and his wife who wanted to furnish their new