Born and trained in Dresden, Petri fled to the United States after participating in the failed German Revolutions of 1848–49. A portrait painter by trade, he joined thousands of German immigrants who sought a new life in Texas, eventually settling on the Pedernales River near Fredericksburg. There, he continued to draw and paint watercolors, and he took particular interest in the Penateka Comanches and Lipan Apaches who visited the German settlements in the area and who sometimes camped near his farm to harvest and shell pecans.

Petri did not record the names of his subjects, and he recycled and mixed figures, objects, and poses from image to image, making it difficult to identify specific individuals or their tribal affiliations. Even so, in showing such informal encounters, Petri’s images complicate histories that portray the Comanches and the Apaches as exclusively violent and hostile toward settlers.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023).