miniaturist, still-life, animal and portrait painter, lithographer and art teacher, was born in Paris on 22 February 1802, daughter of the Dutch painter and engraver Alexander Liernur. She was also his pupil. In 1824 she married Benjamin Suggitt Nayler, a teacher of English and resident of Amsterdam, who later became a well-known writer and lecturer on spiritualism. She is recorded as having made portraits, miniatures, copies of Old Masters, lithographs and bird and still-life paintings while living in Amsterdam. In 1836 she exhibited portraits of Rubens and Sir Walter Scott together with her usual natural history subjects.
The Naylers lived in Britain for a period. They migrated to Victoria quite late in life, arriving at Melbourne from Liverpool aboard the Great Britain on 21 September 1865. At the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition Maria Nayler filled a whole compartment with fifty-eight works. Most were fruit and flower studies or copies of Old Masters; one was a copy of an oil painting by William Dexter . There were six miniatures, eight 'experimental paintings’ on cloth, and some specimens of 'indelible painting’, an art form, she stated in the catalogue, that she was willing to teach. At the 1869 Melbourne Public Library Exhibition her husband exhibited three of her pictures: Napoleon the First, in Sepia, after Delaroche and two watercolours, Magdalen after Lebrun and Pembrokeshire Hedge .
Benjamin Nayler held a monster art union in 1867. Originally consisting of 1000 tickets at 10s each, the prizes were 718 European paintings and engravings (mainly engravings) plus forty watercolours by his wife, primarily English and European fruit, flower and bird subjects. Mrs Nayler’s only stated local titles were Victorian Figs and Victorian Grapes ; most, such as Branch of Apples or Bird’s Nest , were non-specific. Her painting of a lark’s nest was after Dexter. Through lack of support and changes in the law, the lottery was subsequently altered to offering the same number of prizes as tickets (i.e. 520; some lots contained more than one painting or engraving) and Mr Nayler proclaimed it was now 'A real Art Union’. Accompanying the publicity for this event was a notice announcing that Benjamin Nayler was recommencing his former profession as an English teacher. He claimed that he was well known in Europe as a teacher, elocutionist and literary figure, having refused a professorship at two 'renowned’ universities, and promised to teach 'an accurate and elegant Pronunciation … in less than twelve hours ' with the proviso that pupils attend one hour daily 'on consecutive days’.
At this time the Naylers were living in Holland Terrace, High Street, near Chapel Street, Prahran, but their affiliation with spiritualist groups later led them to Stawell where the sect apparently had a relatively strong following. Maria Nayler died there on 18 July 1874; her husband died in Melbourne in June 1875. No extant paintings have been identified.
