Feast of the Gods

1600 · Private collection

mythological

Hans Rottenhammer was a German artist who traveled to Italy around the turn of the seventeenth century. Although trained in Munich under the court painter Hans Donauer, his most formative training arose from studying the grand works of Tintoretto, Veronese and Palma Giovane in Venice, where he spent a lengthy and successful sojourn from 1591-1606, broken only by a brief Roman excursion from 1594-1595. Rottenhammer would later settle back in his native Bavaria, but his style, though German at its core, would remain strongly rooted in Italy, particularly in Venice, until the end of his career.

About the Artist

Hans I Rottenhammer

1564 – 1625

Hans (Johann) Rottenhammer I, German painter. He travelled to Venice in 1589 and spent many years there and in Rome. In Venice he gained a reputation for small highly-finished cabinet paintings on copper, of religious and mythological subjects, combining German and Italian elements of style. In Rome he knew the members of the Bamboccianti (a circle of Northern artists). He employed Adam Elsheimer as an assistant in 1598 or 1599, and he collaborated with Paul Bril and Jan Brueghel the Elder by contributing figures to their landscapes. He was commissioned in 1600 to paint a Feast of the Gods for Emperor Rudolph II (now in The Hermitage, St. Petersburg). Settling in Augsburg in 1606, he worked for the Count von Schaunburg at Bückeburg, executing wall and ceiling decorations. He worked also on larger altarpieces.

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