Hans Rottenhammer

In Venice he gained a reputation for small highly finished cabinet paintings on copper, of religious and mythological subjects, combining German and Italian elements of style.

In Rome he knew the earlier members of the Bamboccianti, a circle of Northern artists (before the name itself arose), and remained in regular contact with Paul Bril, a Flemish artist living in Rome, sending him plates with the figures painted on for Bril to supply the landscape, according to a dealer's letter of 1617.

Elsheimer's mature paintings are all small and on copper, and continue to develop Rottenhammer's synthesis of German and Italian styles, and use of landscape.

Among his noted works are those painted for Emperor Rudolph II of Austria: Nativity (1608), Battle Between Centaurs and Lapithæ, and four others, in the Vienna Museum.

There are paintings in the main galleries in London, Munich (3), Augsburg, Berlin, Cambridge, St Petersberg, Amsterdam (2), Schwerin, Milan, Los Angeles, Dunedin and elsewhere.