Hans Holbein – Le triomphe de la mort (1780) Verzeichniß der Gemälde der Kaiserlich Königlichen Bilder-Gallerie in Wien (1783) Entwurf einer Kunstgeschichte Helvetiens (1791) Christian von Mechel (4 April 1737 in Basel; † 11 April 1817 in Berlin) was a Swiss engraver, publisher and art dealer.

He developed a broad trade in art, through business connections throughout northern and central Europe; although the French Revolutionary Wars ruined him financially, he started over in 1805 in Berlin.

From 1757 to 1764 he lived in Paris, where he studied with Johann Georg Wille and later launched his own studio, where he produced his own work and sold other objets d'art.

Soon, the businessman, the art dealer and the artist were combined into one; he began signing his name to works produced by talented apprentices and selling them as his own.

He returned to Basel in 1765 and in 1766 opened a large art dealer's business and engraving workshop in the St. Johannes quarter of the city (the Vorstadt).

[3] During these productive years, he published several volumes, including Vorstellungen und Plane der merkwürdigsten Begebenheiten des gegenwärtigen Krieges der Österreicher und Russen gegen die Türken (1790) (Ideas and plans of the most remarkable events of the present war the Austrians and Russians against the Turks);Explication des renvois de l'estampe enluminée, qui représente la vallé de Chamouni, le Mont-Blanc et les montagnes adjacentes (1791) (Explanation of the print references illuminated, which represents the valley of Chamouni, Mont Blanc and the adjacent mountains) and Entwurf einer Kunstgeschichte Helvetiens (1791) (History of Swiss Art).

To display such treasures to the hoi polloi required, the cultured and refined classes believed, explanations to the unlettered and uninformed.

His publication of, for example, Itinéraire du St. Gothard, d'une partie de Vallais et des contrées de la Suisse, que l'on traverse ordinairement pour se rendre au Gothard (1795) (The St. Gotthard Itinerary: part of Vallais and regions of Switzerland; and Views of Switzerland drew on the popularity of emerging importance of the Grand Tour for the wealthy.

Mechel attempted to capitalize on local events in the ongoing warfare with France with the publication of Tableaux historiques et topographiques, ou relations exactes et impartiales des trois événemens mémorables qui terminèrent la campagne de 1796 sur le Rhin (1798) (Historical and topographical paintings, accurate and impartial relationship or three memorable events that ended the 1796 campaign on the Rhine); and Soldaten- und Plotons-Schule für die Infanterie aus dem französischen Reglement (1799)[note 2] During the mid-1790s he speculated, often unwisely, in the purchase of art from large collections from the French emigre noble families.

[4] The political and economic turmoil caused by the French revolutionary wars made him country-less and homeless and in 1797 he fled Basel.

At a stop in Frankfurt am Main, he cataloged the artwork of the Dominican monastery, then moved on to Kassel and Weimar, where he met again with Goethe, and made the acquaintance of Schiller.

In Dresden he furthered his acquaintance with the Swiss painters Anton Graff and Adrian Zingg and finally settled in Berlin in 1805.

Afterward, he produced, in collaboration with Wilhelm von Humboldt and others, luxurious printed editions showcasing the work of such Reformation artists as Lucius Cranach the Younger.