Johann Franz ERMELS
Reilkirch 1621/41 - Nuremberg 1693
Biography
A landscape painter and etcher, Johann Franz (sometimes Johann Franciscus) Ermels grew up in Cologne and trained with the history painter Johann Hülsmann. He travelled to Holland, where he came under the influence of the painter Jan Both and other Italianate Dutch artists. From 1660 onwards he lived in Nuremberg, where he was among the circle of artists around Joachim von Sandrart after the latter settled there in 1674. In later years Ermels collaborated with Wilhlem van Bemmel, painting figures in the latter’s landscapes.
Several large and highly finished drawings of classical and mythological landscapes by Ermels are today in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. Other landscape drawings by the artist are in the collections of the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum in Braunschweig, the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, the Louvre in Paris, the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, the Albertina in Vienna, and elsewhere.
