Johan Gregor van der Schardt

Who was Johan Gregor van der Schardt?

Johan Gregor van der Schardt was a sculptor from the Northern Renaissance.

He toured Italy in the 1560s and was in the service of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, in Vienna from 1569 to 1576, whilst also taking commissions in Nuremberg, where he specialised in painted terracotta busts, including a self-portrait of about 1573, one of the earliest such by a sculptor.

After 1576 he moved to the royal court of Denmark where he is presumed to have worked during the 1580s and died in the early 1590s, perhaps at Uraniborg on 30 November 1591.

Unusually for a non-Italian artist, his work was praised by Giorgio Vasari.