Self-Portrait - The Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Adam Elsheimer (March 18, 1578 - December 11, 1610) was a German artist working in Rome.
He died at only thirty-two, but was very influential in the early 17th century in the field of Baroque paintings.
His relatively few paintings were small-scale, nearly all painted on copper plates, of the type often known as cabinet paintings.
They include a variety of light effects, and an innovative treatment of landscape.
He was an influence on many other artists, including Rembrandt and Peter Paul Rubens.
Elsheimer was born in Frankfurt am Main, one of ten children and the son of a master tailor.
His father's house was a few metres from the church where Albrecht Dürer's Heller Altarpiece was then displayed.
Adam was apprenticed to the artist Philipp Uffenbach.
He probably visited Strasbourg in 1596.
At the age of twenty, he travelled to Italy via Munich, where he was documented in 1598.
His stay in Venice is undocumented, but the influence on his style is clear.
He probably worked as an assistant to Johann Rottenhammer, some of whose drawings he owned.
Rottenhammer was a German who had been living in Italy for some years, and was the first German painter to specialize in cabinet paintings.
Uffenbach had specialized in large altarpieces, and although Elsheimer's earliest small paintings on copper seem to date from before he arrived in Italy, Rottenhammer's influence is clear in his mature work.
Elsheimer is believed to have produced some significant works in Venice, such as The Baptism of Christ (National Gallery, London) and The Holy Family (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin) which show the influence of the Venetian painters Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese, as well as Rottenhammer.
The Background Story:
Holy Family with St. John the Baptist - 1599
The Baptism of Christ - 1599
The Exaltation of the Cross from the Frankfurt Tabernacle - c. 1605
Venus and Cupid - c. 1600
The Flight into Egypt - c. 1609 - Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany
Ceres and Stelio - 19th Century Photogravure - Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC
Tobias and the Angel - 1607 - 1608
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