Personalities Thurneysen (Thurneyser), Johann Jacob (Jean-Jacques)

Engraver of Swiss origin. His father, André Thurneysen, was a State Councilor. From 1647 to 1649 he studied at Yverdon. In 1650–1653 he mastered the technique of engraving in the workshop of Pierre Aubry in Strasbourg. From 1656 to 1659 – in Lyon. In 1659–1661 he was in Turin and served the Duke of Savoy: he worked on engravings for the publication of S. Guichenon "Genealogical History of the Royal House of Savoy" (Guichenon, Samuel. Histoire généalogique de la royale maison de Savoie. – Lyon, 1660). In 1662 he returned to Lyon, where he worked until 1681. In the 1680s, due to persecution of Protestants in France, he returned to Basel. From 1695 to 1697 – in Vienna, at the service of emperor Leopold I, for whom he made several portraits and images of saints. After a short stay in Prague, Nuremberg, Augsburg in 1699 he returned to Basel, where he died. He engraved portraits, historical scenes, allegories, frontispieces, bookplates and illustrations from the originals of other artists. He left more than 350 works.