Gottfried Wals, or Goffredo Wals (c. 1595 – 1638) was a German painter who spent most of his career in Italy. He was sometimes referred to as Goffredo Tedesco (Goffredo the German).

Biography

Little is known about his early life, except that he was born in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

. He wandered about through numerous Italian cities, including

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 ...

and

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

; arriving in Rome around 1615. There, he became an assistant to

Agostino Tassi Agostino Tassi (born Agostino Buonamici; bapt. 3 August 1578 – January 1644) was an Italians, Italian landscape and seascape painter who was convicted of raping Artemisia Gentileschi in 1612. Because he aspired to nobility he modified the deta ...

, a harsh master who attacked him with blows from a club and was briefly imprisoned in 1616, when Wals filed a complaint. The following year, he lived with the newly arrived

Massimo Stanzione Massimo Stanzione (also called Stanzioni; Frattamaggiore 1585 – Naples 1656) was an Italian Baroque painter, mainly active in Naples, where he and his rival Jusepe de Ribera dominated the painting scene for several decades. He was primarily a ...

, in the Roman quarter of

Trastevere Trastevere () is the 13th of Rome, Italy. It is identified by the initials R. XIII and it is located within Municipio I. Its name comes from Latin (). Its coat of arms depicts a golden head of a lion on a red background, the meaning of which i ...

. From 1620 to 1622,

Claude Lorrain Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in I ...

was an occasional student of his. In 1623, he was back in Genoa with Antonio Travi as his student. Most of his works were in small format, often circular and painted on copper. His interest in

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

and lighting is very marked and often bears resemblance to the works of

Filippo Napoletano Filippo Napoletano, whose real name was Filippo Teodoro di Liagno (or Teodoro Filippo de Liagno) (c. 1587-89 – November 1629) was an Italian artist, with a varied output, mainly Landscape painting, landscape and genre painting, genre scenes ...

, who was in turn a follower of

Adam Elsheimer Adam Elsheimer (18 March 1578 – 11 December 1610) was a German artist working in Rome, who died at only thirty-two, but was very influential in the early 17th century in the field of Baroque paintings. His relatively few paintings were sma ...

. Few works of his have come down to us. His

Catalogue raisonné A (or critical catalogue) is an annotated listing of the works of an artist or group of artists and can contain all works or a selection of works categorised by different parameters such as medium or period. A ''catalogue raisonné'' is normal ...

contains only twenty-five works that have been definitely identified as painted by him. In comparison, it is known that, in 1634, the Belgian-born merchant,

Gaspard De Roomer Gaspar Roomer (between 1596 and 1606 – 3 April 1674) was a Flemish merchant, banker, art patron and art collector who was active in Naples in the 17th century. He played an important role in the support and promotion of Flemish artists who vis ...

(c.1600–1674) of Naples, owned sixty of his landscapes and fourteen drawings. He most probably died in

Calabria Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ...

, during or shortly after the earthquake of 27 March 1638, which killed almost 10,000 people.Giovanna Capitelli, "Il paesaggio italianizzante", in; ''La pittura di paesaggio in Italia''.

References

External links

More works by Wals
@ ArtNet {{DEFAULTSORT:Wals, Gottfried 1590s births 1638 deaths Emigrants from the Holy Roman Empire Immigrants to the Papal States German landscape painters 17th-century German painters

Biography

References

Further reading

External links