Michael Willmann

Michael Leopold Lukas Willmann (27 September 1630 – 26 August 1706) was a German painter. The Baroque artist became known as the "Silesian Rembrandt", "Silesian Apelles" or "Silesian Raphael" and has been called the greatest Silesian painter of the baroque period. While he is often described as self-thought, he studied for a time under Jacob Adriaensz Backer.

After two years in the Netherlands, mostly spent in Amsterdam, in 1653 Willmann returned to Königsberg, passed his master's examination, and began to travel. After visiting Danzig (Gdańsk), Willmann went to Prague, where he stayed from 1653–55. He then spent about a year in Breslau (Wrocław). Willmann's first known painting, Landscape with John the Baptist, commissioned by Abbot Arnold Freiberger of the Abbatia Lubensis abbey in Leubus (Lubiąż), Lower Silesia, dates from 1656. Leubus, a village in the Silesian part of the Holy Roman Empire, would become the setting of much of Willmann's creativity.

From 1657–58 Willmann was in Berlin as the court painter of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg.

Willmann's workshop, modeled after those of the Dutch painters, quickly spread his fame. The extensive family studio included his son , his daughter Anna Elisabeth, and Anna Elisabeth's husband Christian Neuenhertz and son . Willmann's studio also counted Johann Kretschmer from Glogau (Głogów), from Breslau, the Cistercian from Grüssau, and Willmann's stepson Jan Kryštof Liška.

Works Willman's style was inspired by artists such as Rembrant, Rubens, van Dyck and Pietro da Cortona. His distinctive style comes from background sketching technique and the adjustment of details. This style was continued by his students. Petr Brandl, Johann Michael Rottmayr, and Franz Anton Maulbertsch.

Perhaps his most famous work is the series of paintings from The Martyrdom of the Apostles cycle.

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