AMBERGER, CHRISTOPH. — German painter and woodcut artist, b. c. 1500, d. between 1561 and 1562. He belonged to the BURGKMAIR, HANS (v.) and the Venetians (Titian, Bordone), avoiding, unlike the German mannerists after him, e.g. Aachen (v.), the influence of the Tuscan mannerists. In Augsburg there are altarpieces by him in the Cathedral (1554) and in the church of St. Anna (1560), and several Madonnas in the gallery. He was the leading portraitist after Holbein, as evidenced by the portrait of Charles V in the Berlin Museum, of which a copy exists in Siena. He provided designs for the tomb of Emperor Maximilian at Innsbruck.
BIBL.: A. Haeuser, A. Königseberg 1894; M. J. Friedlaender, S. V. in Thieme-Becker, I. p. 387; A. Feulner, in Buchner-Feuchtmayr, Beitr. II, Augsburg 1928, p. 442; G. Dehio, Geschichte der Deutschen Kunst, III, Berlin 1931, p. 127; K. Feuchtmayr, C. A. und Jörg Hermann, in Münchner Jahrbuch d. Bild. Kunst, nuova serie, 13 (1938-39), pp. 79-86. Bernardo Degenhart.