Lucas Schan


Lucas Schan was a natural history artist and wildfowler, known for his illustrations of birds for Conrad Gessner's Historia animalium, published at Zurich in 1551–58 and 1587.
Gessner acknowledges Schan in the book with the words:
Schan is the only artist named by Gessner; he painted most of the bird illustrations for his bird volume, together by Gessner's account with some descriptive text. The illustrations were so much liked that they were brought out in a volume of their own in 1560, Icones Animalium. Authors such as Ilaria Mazzoleni state without evidence that Schan made most of the illustrations of animals throughout the Historia. Springer and Kinzelbach provide a slightly different quote from Gessner praising Schan:
Little else is known about Schan. It is recorded that Lucas Schan of Bornaia testified in Strasbourg in 1526, 1539 and 1544. The Strasbourg City book records also that on 22 November 1526 "Lux of Baranga called Schen, son of Jerg Schanen the sheepshearer, has paid for the right to work in the town and serves at Stelzgen".