He toured Italy in the 1560s and among others worked in
Bologna. From 1569 to 1576 he was in the service of
Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor in
Vienna, and subsequently took commissions in
Nuremberg, where he specialised in painted
terracotta busts. Such a bust includes a
self-portrait of about 1573, one of the earliest such examples by a sculptor. From c. 1576 to c. 1580, he worked on the construction of the
Uraniborg observatory of the Danish astronomer
Tycho Brahe on the island of
Hven. After 1576 he moved to the royal court of Denmark (with a return to Nuremberg in 1579) 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. == Gallery ==