Michael Strieby Nachtrieb was a skilled decorative, portrait and still-life painter. Born in 1835 in Wooster, Ohio, Nachtrieb was primarily self-taught, with the exception of a short period in New York at the Art Students League.

He was mainly active in Ohio and on the Mississippi River Steamboats painting landscapes and portraits. Of all the states between the East and West coasts, it was Ohio who developed the greatest and most continuous artistic tradition. Even though Chicago had become the artistic center of the American heartland by the end of the nineteenth century and in some ways rivaled the Eastern metropolises, Ohio's achievements had a greater longevity, and the work of Ohio artists had, on the whole, a greater impact.

It was at mid-century that Nachtrieb started painting still-lifes, his favorite subjects included plums, apples, grapes, and peaches, among other fruit. By the 1860s and 1870s the decorative still-life was institutionalized as the dining room or parlor pictures of the time.