Jost Amman

1539 Zurich – 1591 Nuremberg

Jost Amman was born in Zurich, where he grew up in a sheltered, humanist environment. His father was choirmaster and Professor of Rhetoric, Logic and Philology at the Collegium Carolinum of Zurich’s Classical Academy. In 1561 the artist moved to Nuremberg, where he joined the studio of Virgil Solis and soon made a name for himself as an etcher and designer of book illustrations. In 1577 Amman was made a citizen of Nuremberg. Following the death of Solis in 1562 Amman took over the flourishing studio, inheriting its artistic legacy. Subsequently he created numerous designs for stained-glass windows with Biblical themes and heraldic motifs commissioned by German and Swiss patricians. His marriage in 1574 to Barbara Wilck, the widow of a Nuremberg goldsmith, may have been instrumental in Amman’s subsequent close involvement with the design of pieces of gold work.