The German painter Peter Baumgartner received his first art training at Jakob Filser at the Munich drawing school. He then studied with Joseph Anton Rhomberg at the Polytechnic and later with Hermann Anschütz and Johann Georg Hiltensperger at the Art Academy. From 1857 he took private lessons from the Academy Professor Carl Theodor Piloty and was to 1861 employed at his eponymous school. With his patron, the young artist went on a long study trip to France, Flanders, Austria and in the Rhineland.

Baumgartner's oeuvre consists mainly of rural subjects (mountains, Alm) and humorous genre pieces (everyday lives of children, peasants and city dwellers), but in addition also of floral motifs, still life and literary motivated works. In addition, the artist gained awareness due to his sketchbooks with animal images and portraits.

Baumgartner is now considered an important representative of the Munich painting of the second half of the 19th century. Many of his works were sold after his death in Switzerland and in the United States.