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Byss [Bys], Johann Rudolf
(b Chur, 11 May 1660; d Würzburg, 11 Dec 1738). Swiss painter, active in Prague and Franconia. He was a pupil of his father, Johann Joseph Byss, in Solothurn. In the 1680s he made a study trip to Germany, England and the Netherlands. From 1689 he was employed by Count Hermann Jakob Cernín (d 1710) in Prague as court painter and administrator of the Count’s picture gallery, and that year he also married Maximiliana Wagner, the daughter of one of the Emperor’s clerks. Byss introduced to Prague many of the stylistic tendencies of Netherlandish and Italian classicism: for example in his altar painting of 1691, John of God (Prague, church of the Brothers of Mercy). A Netherlandish orientation is again seen in the easel painting Vestal Claudia Quinta (1692; Prague, N.G., convent of St George). In 1692 Byss became a citizen of Prague, and in 1694 he was admitted to the painters’ guild, where he subsequently became a master. His versatility and speed soon brought him a number of commissions. In easel paintings he treated historical themes, and he painted landscapes inspired by the work of the Dutch followers of Nicolaes Berchem. He also painted notable still-lifes, at first following the example of the game-pieces by Jan Baptist Weenix and Willem Gouw Ferguson, for example Shot Partridge (1693; sold Amsterdam, Christie’s, 1985). The Bust of a Child Wreathed with Flowers (1695; Munich, Alte Pin.) reveals a more original approach to still-life, as well as a liking for elaborate detail and paler colours. A companion piece for this work was painted in 1703 by Johann Adalbert Angermeyer (1674–c. 1740), a pupil of Byss and the first Prague still-life specialist.
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