Tobias Stimmer
Born in 1539.
Died in 1584.
Tobias Stimmer (1539–1584), a painter, draughtsman and illustrator from Schaffhausen, ranks among the major artists of the Late Renaissance in the German-speaking world. From as early as the 1560s, he produced portraits of prominent figures from Zurich, Schaffhausen and St Gallen. The façade frescoes of the Zum Ritter house in Schaffhausen, painted in 1568–1569, constituted his first major monumental commission.
Following a stay in Italy and a collaboration with the Basel publisher Pietro Perna, he settled in Strasbourg in 1570. There he decorated the cathedral’s astronomical clock face and worked chiefly for illustrated publishing: his drawings served in particular as models for woodcuts. His sheets also provided designs for frescoes and stained glass.
Stimmer was also a poet and the author of a carnival play, which he illustrated himself. From 1576 to 1584, he was court painter to Margrave Philip II of Baden. Some of his portraits of the Peyer family disappeared during the bombardment of Schaffhausen in 1944; a foundation established at the Allerheiligen Museum two years later supports the study of his œuvre.
Wall painting, portraiture and the illustrated book thus make his work a link between the urban space and print culture.