(b Schaffhausen, 17 April 1539; d Strasbourg, 14 Jan 1584). Draughtsman, painter and wood-engraver.

No details are known of his apprenticeship, which he must have completed c. 1556. His early drawings (1557 and 1558) show surprising self-assurance and by the early 1560s were of extremely high quality, as is shown by Christ on the Cross (1561; London, BM), Crucifixion (1562; New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib.) and Squirrel Eating a Nut (c. 1563; Zurich, Ksthaus; see fig. 1), a brush drawing with white highlights in watercolour and bodycolour, notable for its naturalistic style and reminiscent of Albrecht Dürer’s studies of nature. His Self-portrait (c. 1563; Donaueschingen, Fürstenberg Samml.), a pen and watercolour drawing in brown over a preparatory drawing in chalk, is a striking departure from the norm of self-portrayal: his head is bent down so that his right eye is completely obscured by his nose, a position that could hardly have been seen by looking in the mirror. In a second Self-portrait (1569; Darmstadt, Hess. Landesmus.) a pen drawing with white highlights, Stimmer posed with his head imperiously raised. He also produced a group of drawings for bannerets, for example Banneret of Berne (c. 1569; Zurich, Ksthaus), a pen drawing with white highlights on a red ground.

Part of the Stimmer family

• Stimmer, Tobias
  • Stimmer
  • Switzerland, §III, 2: Painting, graphic arts and stained glass: Renaissance period, c 1500–c 1620
  • collaboration
    • Murer, Christoph
  • works
    • Façade decoration, §I, 1: Painting: History and development
    • Giovio, Paolo
    • Stimmer: (1) Tobias Stimmer, §1: Schaffhausen, 1539–69
    • Stimmer: (1) Tobias Stimmer, §2: Strasbourg, 1570–77
    • Stimmer: (2) Abel Stimmer
    • Woodcut, §II, 3(i): 16th century: Holy Roman Empire
    • Woodcut, chiaroscuro, §2: History