Luigi Mayer (1755–1803) was an Italian-German artist and one of the earliest and most important late 18th-century European painters of the Ottoman Empire. Life Mayer was a close friend of Sir Robert Ainslie, 1st Baronet, a British ambassador to Turkey between 1776 and 1792, and the bulk of his paintings and drawings during this period were commissioned by Ainslie. He travelled extensively through the Ottoman Empire between 1776 and 1794, and became well known for his sketches and paintings of panoramic landscapes of ancient sites from the Balkans to the Greek Islands, Turkey and Egypt, particularly ancient monuments and the Nile. Many of the works were amassed in Ainslie's collection, which was later presented to the British Museum, providing a valuable insight into the Middle East of that period. His wife, Clara Barthold Mayer, worked as his assistant and produced her own paintings. Works Views in Turkey in Europe and Asia (from 1801), by Sir Robert Ainslie, was a multi-volume work based on Mayer's drawings. There were plates engraved by William Watts. Thomas Milton was involved, producing aquatints of Egyptian views. Gallery See also List of Orientalist artists Orientalism References British Museum biography Notes 1755 births 1803 deaths 18th-century German painters 18th-century German male artists 19th-century German painters 19th-century Italian male artists 18th-century Italian painters 19th-century Italian painters German male painters German people of Italian descent German orientalists Italian landscape painters Italian male painters Orientalist painters Painters of ruins 18th-century Italian male artists Travelers in Asia Minor