Niklaus Manuel Deutsch
Born in 1484.
Died in 1530.
Sources indicate that his actual name may have been Niklaus Aleman, that «Manuel» was his father’s first name, and that «Deutsch» is the Germanic form of «Aleman».
He is frequently presented in the literature as a painter and draughtsman active in Bern. He signed with the monogram NMD, most often accompanied by a dagger and, after 1515, by a ribbon; specialists use this monogram to assist in dating his works.
Among the documented works is a Retable de Marie dated 1515: the left-hand exterior panel, depicting Saint Eligius, is held in the Oscar Reinhart collection in Winterthur. While working on an altarpiece for the town of Grandson, he spent February to May 1516 in Italy as secretary to Captain Albrecht von Stein.
In religious and civic terms, he is described as a supporter of Zwingli and is said to have played a leading role in 1528 in organising the iconoclastic destructions in Bern.
His works are represented in several collections and repositories in Switzerland, notably in the Fine Arts Museums of Basel and Bern, the Bern Historical Museum, the collegiate church of that city, and various rural churches in the canton.