Johanna von Isser Großrubatscher

Johanna von Isser Großrubatscher (27 December 1802 – 25 May 1880) was an Austrian graphic artist and writer.

Life Johanna Maximiliana Großrubatscher was born at Neustift (today part of Vahrn, Italy) near Brixen, about north of Bolzano. Caspar Großrubatscher, her father, was a Pfleger (senior public administrator) originally from nearby Ladinia. She grew up in Merano where she was taught by the artists J. Kapeller and Makart, an uncle of the better remembered Vienna artist Hans Makart.

Most of Johanna's pictures ended up in the collections of the Austrian National Library in Vienna and of the Tyrolean State Museum (Ferdinandeum) in Innsbruck. They are still regarded as important sources for research on castles in the area. They are valued for their attention to detail and are also helpful in "folklore research" since the artist frequently included small "genre scenes", generally showing working people, which provide contemporary context for the overall images. In particular, the images present the artistic mood of those times, characterized by a certain empathy with nature and a yearning for a return to (a romanticised vision of) the middle ages.

One person who came across Johanna von Isser's collection of approximately 400 views of mountains and castles was the London artist-businessman Thomas Allom. He used her paintings as templates for paintings of his own and, in particular, for steel engravings. Prints from the steel engravings were published by Allom in Fleet Street, London, in a slim volume which also contained texts from Joseph Hormayr (1782–1848). As a result Johanna von Isser acquired an international reputation for her views of mountains and castles. As well as Thomas Allom, there were other English artists who used Johanna Großrubatscher's as templates. These included Samuel Lacey, T. Barber, W. Taylor and H. Winkles. There were others who took Thomas Allom's derivative works as their templates.

After her husband died some sources state that she relocated to Salzburg while others state that she moved in with the family of her daughter Alma who had married Hermann Reinhart von Thurnfels und Ferklehnen and lived at Varna di Bressanone. There is agreement that she later moved back to Innsbruck which is where she lived for some years until her death there.