Hans Jakob Plepp (Swiss, active 1576-1595)
Hans Jakob Plepp
Swiss, active 1576-1595
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Hans Jacob Plepp may have trained in Bern with the leading designers of stained glass, Daniel Lindtmayer and Tobias Stimmer; his earliest drawings, dating from 1578, show both their influences. Around 1579 Plepp moved to Basel, where he gained citizenship two years later and subsequently joined the artists' guild. He may also have been active in Zurich around 1592. The following year he resettled in Bern, where he appears to have been particularly successful.
Plepp routinely drew precise, often ruled, lines on his sheets, added sculptural washes, and then outlined the mirror image of the design on the other side of the sheet. His two hundred surviving drawings form one of the largest such groups from this period. Scholars consider him among the finest and most productive stained-glass designers in Switzerland in the late 1500s, a time and place where the art of stained glass reached new heights.
