As a student at elementary school, he took art lessons from Johann Baptist Pflug until the age of thirteen.

At that time, he was apprenticed to the book publisher Georg Ebner in Stuttgart where he received lessons in business, as well as drawing and engraving.

During these years he produced many genre paintings based on sketches by other artists.

Although he was now married, he continued to lead a wandering life, travelling throughout the Rhine Valley, Southern Germany, Italy and Austria, producing lithographs of all the areas he visited.

He was there for only five years, however, before he moved again; back to his home town of Biberach, where he died from a fit of apoplexy.