Mathias I Fussli Paintings

Mathias Fussli, also known as Johann Rudolf Füssli, was born in 1741 in Zurich, Switzerland, into a family with a rich artistic background. His father, Johann Caspar Füssli, was a well-known portrait painter and art writer, which provided Mathias with a nurturing environment for his artistic talents from an early age. However, despite the name, Mathias Fussli is not as widely recognized as his cousin, Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli), who became a prominent Romantic painter famous for his dramatic and supernatural subjects.

Mathias's artistic journey began under the tutorship of his father and later he might have been influenced by the works of his cousin Henry. While the details of his artistic education are not well documented, it is known that he worked primarily in Zurich. The era in which Mathias lived was a time of significant change in the arts, with the Enlightenment giving way to Romanticism, and this transition is often reflected in the work of artists from this period.

Throughout his career, Mathias Fussli worked as an artist, but his legacy has been largely overshadowed by the more famous members of the Füssli family, especially Henry Fuseli, who left a considerable mark on the art world with his expressive and fantastical works. Mathias's own contributions to the arts may include portraiture and genre scenes, which were common subjects among Swiss artists of the time. However, specific works attributed to Mathias are not widely known or documented.

Mathias Fussli passed away in 1825. Due to the relative obscurity of his work, information about his life and career is sparse, and he is often a footnote in the history of art, especially when compared to his cousin Henry Fuseli. Nevertheless, Mathias was part of the rich tapestry of Swiss art in the 18th and 19th centuries, and his life reflects the familial tradition of artistic pursuit within the Füssli family.