Hans Asper

18th-century portrait of Hans Asper

Hans Asper (c. 1499 – 21 March 1571) was a Swiss painter best known for his portraits.

Life

Asper was born in c. 1499 in Zürich, where he lived his entire life. Nothing is known of him until 1526, when he married the daughter of Ludwig Nöggi, a master carpenter who sat in the city council, and Asper himself was a citizen of some standing, being elected to the Great Council in 1545. He is thought to have studied with Hans Leu the Younger, in Zürich, and appears to have received early influence in portrait painting from the works of Hans Holbein the Younger. His first artworks date from 1531, with possibly the most well-known portrait of Swiss reformator Huldrych Zwingli, painted with oil on parchment. In the same year Asper painted the interiors of some of Zürich's government buildings, being at the time the official painter to the city.

He painted in a variety of styles, and is particularly known for his studies of flowers and fruit. Many of his works are lost. Notable works include portraits of Huldrych Zwingli and Zwingli's daughter Regula Gwalter, which came into the ownership of the public library of Zürich. Asper is also believed to have provided the illustrations for Conrad Gesner's Historia Animalium.

Asper had a medal struck in his honor, but died in poverty in 1571. Two of his eleven children, Hans Rudolf Asper and Rudolf Asper, were also painters.

Gallery

• 
  Huldrych Zwingli, 1531
• 
  Cleophea Holzhalb, 1538
• 
  Huldrych Zwingli, 1549
• 
  Wilhelm Frölich, 1549, Asper's only full-length portrait
• 
  Regula Gwalther Zwingli and Anna Gwalther, 1549, Huldrych Zwingli's daughter and granddaughter
• 
  Pietro Martire Vermigli, 1560
• 
  Johannes Oekolampad

References

Attribution:

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Asper, Hans" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 767.

External links

• Media related to Hans Asper at Wikimedia Commons