Biography

Painter, part of a family of artists of Dutch descent, active in Italy and Germany. Lambert Sustris was a follower of Titian, and was influenced by Venetian and Florentine Mannerism. He trained in Amsterdam and by the early to mid-1530s was in Rome; a graffito with his signature is in the Domus Aurea next to that of Maartin van Heemskerck, who was there in 1532–36. He was probably in Venice c. 1535, in the studio of Titian. His characteristic thin, dry handling can be seen in the landscape of Titian’s Presentation of the Virgin (1539, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice). There is a similar landscape in the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Alte Pinakothek, Munich) now attributed to Sustris. His presence in Titian's workshop in this period is supported by his Venus (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), a copy of Titian’s Venus of Urbino (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), which left Venice in 1538.

His son Friedrich Sustris became a leading exponent of Mannerism in Germany, where he worked as court artist to William V, Duke of Bavaria.