Amman, Jost

(1539 - 1591)

Jost Amman was a Swiss artist, celebrated chiefly for his engravings on wood.

Amman was born in Zurich. Little of his personal history is known beyond the fact that he moved to Nuremberg in 1560, where he continued to reside until his death in March 1591. His productiveness was very remarkable, as may be gathered from the statement of one of his pupils, that the drawings he made during a period of four years would have filled a hay wagon. A large number of his original drawings are contained in the Berlin collection of engravings.

A series of copperplate engravings by Amman of the kings of France, with short biographies, appeared in Frankfurt in 1576. He also executed many of the woodcut illustrations for the Bible published at Frankfurt by Sigismund Feierabend. Another serial work, the Panoplia Omnium Liberalium Mechanicarum et Seden-tariarum Artium Genera Continens, containing 115 plates, is of great value. Amman's drawing is correct and spirited, and his delineation of the details of costume is minute and accurate. Paintings in oil and on glass are attributed to him, but no specimen of these is known to exist.