Johann Emanuel Locher
Swiss, 1769–1840
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Johann Emanuel Locher was a Swiss painter and engraver.
Locher was born in 1769 in Fribourg, Switzerland, the son of Gottfried Locher, an artist from Mengen, and his wife Marie-Françoise Rotzer. Like his brother François (1765–1799), he received his artistic training in his father's studio. His involvement in his father's altarpieces and frescoes is well documented. After leaving his father's workshop, he followed most of his colleagues in turning to gouache outline etchings of Swiss costumes. He also worked as a portrait and miniature painter. In 1813, he moved temporarily to Basel. Around 1820, a series based on his designs, Recueil des portraits suisses des 22 cantons, was published.
Following in his father's footsteps as a church painter, but already in the style of classicism, Johann Emanuel Locher painted the altarpiece with Charles Borromeo for the Church of St. Charles of the RR. PP. Cordeliers in Fribourg in 1811. Locher is less well known as a painter of votive pictures for the Mariahilf chapels in Düdingen and Loreto near Fribourg.