Hans von Aachen

Born in 1552, Hans von Aachen trained in the Netherlandish Renaissance tradition before decamping to Italy in 1574, where he spent roughly fourteen years, mostly in Venice. He returned to Germany in 1587, settling first in Munich, then ending his career in Prague. That Italian sojourn reshaped him: the realism of the North fused with southern warmth produced a distinctive style - versatile across portraits, religious works, allegories, and small genre scenes (often using himself and his wife as laughing models). But it was the mythological nudes, sensual and skillfully rendered on copper panels, that secured his reputation with Rudolf II and beyond. Prints after his designs circulated widely, and his easy temperament helped spread his name across the art centres of late sixteenth-century Europe. He died on 4 March 1615.