His father was a schoolteacher. He studied with the engraver and art dealer Friedrich Weber in
Augsburg. His drawings and graphic prints brought him to the attention of the court painter. After completing his education he was employed by Herzberg, an academic bookstore in Augsburg, where he created popular prints. In 1809, after a brief stay in
Munich, he joined the firm of picture book publisher Friedrich Campe (1777-1846) in
Nuremberg, for which he worked until his death. In total, his oeuvre includes about 5000 drawings and etchings, which he created for Campe and several other art publishers in Augsburg and Nuremberg, including , and
Georg Ebner. He focused on illustrations of battles and other historical events, such as "
Luther at the
Diet of Worms", as well as events of his own time - the
Napoleonic Wars, the
German War of Liberation against Napoleon, and later the
Greek War of Independence. In 1828 he made a series of drawings on
children's games. He was also known as a prominent German
political cartoonist of the early 19th Century. His cartoons, directed against Napoleon Bonaparte, are still reproduced in present-day history books. His depiction of the 1819 anti-Semitic
Hep-Hep riots in
Frankfurt is often reproduced in articles and books about anti-Semitism in general. He was the father of the animal and landscape painters,
Friedrich Voltz, and
Ludwig Gustav Voltz. ==Selected works==