Jakob Emanuel Handmann

Jakob Emanuel Handmann (August 16, 1718 in Basel – November 3, 1781 in Bern) was a Swiss painter specialised in portrait painting. He was a contemporary of the Swiss painters Anton Graff, Jean Preudhomme, Angelica Kauffman, Johann Jakob Schalch, Johann Caspar Füssli and his son Johann Heinrich Füssli.

Jakob Emanuel Handmann was the 9th child of Johann Jakob Handmann, a baker and later bailiff of Waldenburg, and his wife Anna Maria Rispach. Between 1735 and 1739 he made an apprenticeship as a stucco plasterer and studied painting in Schaffhausen with the painter and stucco plasterer Johann Ulrich Schnetzler. He made study trips to Paris, Rome and Naples. In Paris he worked at the studio of Jean Restout II 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. In Italy he worked among others in the studios of Marco Benefial and Pierre Subleyras in Rome. There he mainly copied masterpieces from the Classical Antiquity and Renaissance periods.

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