Jakob Emanuel Handmann (16 August 1718 – 3 November 1781) was a Swiss painter who specialised in

portrait painting Portrait painting is a Hierarchy of genres, genre in painting, where the intent is to represent a specific human subject. The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commissio ...

. He was a contemporary of the Swiss painters

Anton Graff Anton Graff (18 November 1736 – 22 June 1813) was a Swiss portrait artist. Among his famous subjects were Friedrich Schiller, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Heinrich von Kleist, Frederick the Great, Friederike Sophie Seyler, Johann Gottfried Herde ...

Jean Preudhomme Jean Preudhomme or Preud'ho(m)me or Prudhomme ( – ) was a Swiss painter. He was a contemporary of the Swiss painters Anton Graff, Johann Jakob Schalch, Angelica Kauffman, Jakob Emanuel Handmann, Johann Caspar Füssli and his son Johann Heinri ...

Angelica Kauffman Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann ( ; 30 October 1741 – 5 November 1807), usually known in English as Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss people, Swiss Neoclassicism, Neoclassical painter who had a successful career in London and Rome. Remembered prima ...

, Johann Jakob Schalch,

Johann Caspar Füssli Johann Caspar Füssli (3 January 1706 – 6 May 1782) was a Swiss portrait painter and art historian. Biography Füssli was born in Zürich to Hans Rudolf Füssli, who was also a painter, and Elisabeth Schärer. He studied painting in Vienna bet ...

and his son

Johann Heinrich Füssli Henry Fuseli ( ; ; 7 February 1741 – 17 April 1825) was a Swiss painter, draughtsman, and writer on art who spent much of his life in Britain. Many of his successful works depict supernatural experiences, such as ''The Nightmare''. He pro ...

Life and work

Handmann was born on 16 August 1718 in

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

, Switzerland. He was the ninth of fourteen children of Johann Jakob Handmann, a baker and later

bailiff A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. There are different kinds, and their offices and scope of duties vary. Another official sometimes referred to as a '' ...

of Waldenburg, and his wife, Anna Maria Rispach. Between 1735 and 1739, he made an apprenticeship as a

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

plasterer A plasterer is a tradesman who works with plaster, such as forming a layer of plaster on an interior wall or plaster decorative moldings on ceilings or walls. The process of creating plasterwork, called plastering, has been used in buildin ...

and studied painting in

Schaffhausen Schaffhausen (; ; ; ; ), historically known in English as Shaffhouse, is a list of towns in Switzerland, town with historic roots, a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in northern Switzerland, and the capital of the canton of Schaffh ...

with the painter and stucco plasterer Johann Ulrich Schnetzler. He made study trips to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

and

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

. From 1739 to 1742, he worked in Paris at the studio of Jean Restout the Younger, who influenced his work. In 1742 Handmann travelled through France finding employment in a portrait studio partnership with the painter Hörling. In the business partnership with Hörling, Handmann was mainly responsible for painting the heads of the sitters. At the end of 1742, Handmann went to Italy and reached

in the spring of 1743; he worked among others in the studios of

Marco Benefial Marco Benefial (25 April 1684 – 9 April 1764) "Marco Benefial (Getty Museum)" (history), The Getty Museum, 2006, webpage: GM-Benefial. was an Italian, proto- Neoclassical painter, mainly active in Rome. Benefial is best known for h ...

and

Pierre Subleyras Pierre Hubert Subleyras (; November 25, 1699 – May 28, 1749) was a French painter, active during the late-Baroque and early- Neoclassic period, mainly in Italy. Life Subleyras was born in Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, France. He left France in 1728, ...

in Rome. There he mainly copied masterpieces from the

Classical Antiquity Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural History of Europe, European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the inter ...

and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

periods. By June 1746, he was back in Switzerland. In 1747 he settled down in

. In Basel he opened his own studio. However, many of his clients were

patricians The patricians (from ) were originally a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. The distinction was highly significant in the Roman Kingdom and the early Republic, but its relevance waned after the Conflict of the Orders (494 BC to 287 B ...

from the city and the area of

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

. Thanks to the acquaintance of the

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

nobleman Colonel Carl Friedrich von Staal, Handmann became a member of the “

Accademia Clementina The Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna ('academy of fine arts of Bologna') is a public tertiary academy of fine art in Bologna, Italy. It has a campus in Cesena. Giorgio Morandi taught engraving at the Accademia for more than 25 years. Hist ...

” of

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

in 1773. Apart from a trip to

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

in 1753, he never again left his native country.

Gallery

File:Handmann, Portrait d'une jeune musicienne.jpg, A Young Musician, 1772 File:Handmann, Adrian Zingg.jpg, Adrian Zingg, 1767 File:Niklaus Tscharner 1755.jpg, , 1755 File:Handmann Johann Ludwig Aberli.jpg, Johann Ludwig Aberli, 1751 File:Leonhard Euler.jpg,

Leonhard Euler Leonhard Euler ( ; ; ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss polymath who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer, and engineer. He founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made influential ...

, 1753 File:Bildnis der Johanna Margaretha Frisching by Jakob Emanuel Handmann.jpg, Johanna Margaretha Frisching, 1758
(relative of

Franz Rudolf Frisching Franz Rudolf Frisching ( – ) was a Swiss nobleman, military officer, politician and industrialist. Life and career Frisching was the son of Vinzenz Frisching (1689–1764) who was Master of Schlosswil. In 1748, Franz Rudolf Frisching becam ...

)

References

Bibliography

* Thieme-Becker: Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Leipzig: Seemann, 1907–1950; Taschenbuchausgabe: München: DTV (1992) * Thomas Freivogel: ''Emanuel Handmann 1718–1781 – Ein Basler Porträtist im Bern des ausgehenden Rokoko'', Licorne-Verlag (2002) * Thomas Freivogel: ''Emanuel Handmann – beliebtester Porträtist der Familie Tscharner!'
(online)
* Thomas Freivogel: Zwei Friedrich-Bildnisse von Emanuel Handmann. In: Jürgen Ziechmann (Hrsg.): Fridericianische Miniaturen Bd. 2 (OLDENBURG 1991), S. 189-201

External links

* * https://archive.today/20130101082009/http://www.khist.unizh.ch/static/Biblio/FV/EH_Buchanzeige.htm (German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Handmann, Jakob Emanuel 1718 births 1781 deaths 18th-century Swiss painters 18th-century Swiss male artists Swiss male painters Swiss portrait painters Artists from Bern Artists from Basel-Stadt