MURER, Christoph

Swiss glass painter, woodcut designer, etcher, book illustrator and writer. He was the son and pupil of the glass painter and councilor Jos Murer (1530-1580), founder of a family of artists who lived in Zurich in the 16th and 17th centuries. In about 1574, at age 16, he traveled to Strasbourg where he learned the art of woodcutting from Tobias Stimmer, an artist with whom he collaborated on a number of projects.

In 1577 he collaborated with his father on a cycle of 13 pairs of panes representing Thirteen Historic Scenes of the Swiss Confederation for the Zisterzienkloster of Wettingen, Aargau. Christoph’s monograms (SM, STM) are on three panes. He probably followed this work with study travels.

In 1579 he designed a cycle of panes in Basle for the well-known citizen Leonhard Thurneysser (1531-96), celebrating the adventurous life of this much-travelled goldsmith, alchemist, astrologer and personal physician to the Elector of Brandenburg. Of the original cycle, two paintings, including the Birth of Leonhard Thurneysser of Basle in 1531 (1579; Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle), and two design sketches (?1579; private collection) have survived. These early paintings, using strong colours, have wide architectural frames in the foreground giving views on to the different episodes from Thurneysser’s life, several richly orchestrated scenes being included within each of the architectural frames. After them Murer travelled to Strasbourg, and a fine sequence of nine numbered sketches for glass paintings, probably representing the Nine Muses (Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig), is likely to be from Strasbourg, where Murer is documented during 1583 and 1584.

In 1586 he returned to Zurich, where he joined the Saffron guild and began working as a glass painter. As his career advanced, he gained recognition as a painter of stained glass, printmaker, portraitist and playwright. He is known for the exquisite stained glass panels in the Ruchner Mansion in Nuremberg, among other commissions. Later, he was employed by Emperor Rudolf II in Prague and the Bishop of Bamberg in southern Germany. He is also known for producing the illustrations for Jacob Micyllus’ edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, published in 1582, which may be the time period in which this work was produced.

His brother, Josias Murer (1564-1630) executed designs and paintings for the Zurich city hall, as well as created numerous stained-glass panels of coats of arms for churches and city halls throughout the region.

The design contains the coat-of-arms of Herald Zurlauben.

Glass painting began as a national art in Switzerland in the middle of the 15th century, and flourished for 200 years; it then declined in the middle of the 17th century. Glass painting, or more properly glazing, has always been a Northern art and an ecclesiastical art. It was rooted in the Gothic cathedral and blossomed there and flourished as long as the Gothic style endured, languishing when this style gave away to the Italian Renaissance and baroque. The soil which produced Gothic art was that of France, Burgundy, and the Rhine country, and the great ateliers, or glass furnaces, were in these countries. With the rise of the Swiss Confederacy, and the growing wealth and importance of the Swiss states, glaziers from France, Swabia and Burgundy were drawn to the Swiss Cantons, and settled there, forming schools and founding a new national art.

Apollo and Daphne

Design of a Stained-Glass Panel