Charles François MAYER Charles François MAYER is a French painter specializing in genre scenes and portraits. Charles François is the son of Pierre Joseph MAYER (1763-1823), Captain and Commissioner of Wars and of Marie Victoire STOURM, daughter of Paul Nicolas STOURM (1755-1839) Secretary of the Commandments of the Prince of Orange-Nassau-Siegen. He was born on August 16, 1805 in Montigny les Metz near Nancy. His family origin predestined him to become, like his brother Sébastien Théophile (Military Surgeon), a soldier. Little is known about him, except that he exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1834 to 1848 and that his work mainly includes landscapes, portraits and genre scenes. He died in 1849, at the age of 44, of Cholera. The thrird wave of the epidemic (1846-1860) began in France on October 20, 1848, immediately after an English ship entered the port of Dunkirk. In Paris, the first death "at home" was officially recorded on March 7, 1849. For the whole of France, the toll of the epidemic wave of 1849 amounted to 100,661 victims.