STIMMER, TOBIAS. - Painter and engraver, born at Schaffhausen on 17 April 1539, died at Strasbourg on 4 January 1584.
He is one of the principal exponents of late Mannerism in the Germanic lands. Trained in Zurich under Hans Asper, he worked in Schaffhausen until 1570, then in Strasbourg until his death, with occasional stays at Baden-Baden. The Basel Museum holds his finest portraits: Jacob Schwyzer and his Wife (1564), Thomas Erastus (1582); and in Schaffhausen the painted decoration of the façade of the “House of the Knight.” In Strasbourg Cathedral the name of T. S. is linked to the celebrated astronomical clock executed between 1571 and 1574, adorned with paintings and sculptures in a rich ensemble of allegorical and biblical figures. Fourteen chiaroscuro drawings of remarkable skill, depicting designs for the clock’s moving figures, are in the Strasbourg Museum of Fine Arts, where there are also some of the original polychrome paintings and carved figures that were replaced in the cathedral in 1842 by those of Philippe Grass. Of the frescoes in the Baden-Baden castle no trace remains after the destruction of 1789. Many, however, are the drawings and engravings from which Rubens himself sometimes drew examples and inspiration; among the most notable are the engravings of the Bible, Livy’s Roman history, and the books of Flavius Josephus. His manner is always incisive, rapid, rich in pictorial effects with intense contrasts of light and shadow; in 1580 he also illustrated a comedy of which he was the author.