Known for his genre and portrait painting, Christian Mayr was also a designer and daguerreotypist* who traveled widely including the southern states in America and Central America.

Mayr was born in Nuremberg, Germany where his father, Johann Daniel von Mayer (1778-1810) was an artist, engraver and entrepreneur. Christian's father died when the boy was quite young, and his godfather, Christian Fues, also an artist and engraver, took over his education and then married Christian's mother.

In 1819, he entered the Royal Art Academy in Nuremberg and for some time worked as a lithographer* and architectural painter. In 1823, he began study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Munich*. In about 1834, Mayr traveled from Germany to the ...