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(b Basle, 1652; d Basle, 1727).
Swiss painter. The sparse records of his life and career show that he attended the university in Basle, and in 1679 he was painting in Berne, where he was influenced by the local landscape tradition. In 1693 he travelled to Bruges, where he was greatly impressed by Flemish and Dutch art, particularly portraiture and still-lifes. His most celebrated portrait is that of Johann Theobald Hartmann (1697; Solothurn, Zentbib.). His group portraits, such as Interior with an Armenian Family (1698; Solothurn, Kstmus.), reveal his debt to Rembrandt’s portraits. While much of Loutherburg’s career was devoted to portraiture, he was also a specialist in still-lifes, as in Still-life with Books, Cards and Flowers (1697; Basle, Kstmus.), which demonstrates his vivid use of vanitas iconography, then much in vogue in Swiss art. His most astonishing paintings are his trompe-l’oeil compositions painted late in life; the most typical example is Quolibet...
