Edmund Harburger

His father, Franz Xaver, was a merchant in Mainz, and his mother Elisabeth was the daughter of a flagstone dealer.

His employer's brother was the animal painter, Johann Erdmann Gottlieb Prestel (1804-1885), who inspired him to become an artist.

After six years of apprenticeship, he attended the Polytechnic School in Munich (precursor of the University of Technology) to study the building trades but, in 1866, he decided to follow his true passion and switched to the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, where he studied under Karl Raupp and Wilhelm von Lindenschmit the Younger.

Later, he created political cartoons for Die Gartenlaube and, by the time of his death, had contributed over 1,500 humorous drawings to the Fliegende Blätter.

Harburger was particularly attracted to the works of the 17th-century Dutch painters, such as David Teniers the Younger and Adriaen van Ostade).