Biography

German painter. He was the son of Christoph Georg Mayr, a rich merchant in Augsburg, and Susanne Fischer (1600-74), a painter and engraver. In the 1640s he studied with Rembrandt in Amsterdam and with Jacob Jordaens in Antwerp and also travelled to England and Italy. He specialized in portraiture, sometimes depicting his models in historical costumes. His earliest works date from the 1650s, for example Self-portrait (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg). Rembrandt's guidance is evident in the profile Portrait of a Poet (1653; Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz). The influence of Jordaens can be seen in his conception of the half-length David with the Head of Goliath (Schaezler Palais, Augsburg), in which Mayr combined portraiture with an Old Testament theme.

In the late 1650s he worked for the electoral court in Munich and made a series of portraits of Elector Ferdinand Maria, his wife Henriette Adelaide and his brother Maximilian Philipp and his Family (Munich, Residenzmuseum). His portraits, modelled on the English examples of Anthony van Dyck, met the demands of aristocratic taste, and from 1660 Mayr worked for the Viennese aristocracy, among his commissions the full-length portrait of Count Ferdinand Bonaventura von Harrach (1660; Nech Castle, Nechanice). His works of this period are characterized by steady composition, refined colour, freedom of execution and an emphasis on brushwork.