DAUCHER, Hans

Sculptor, son of Adolf Daucher. He was the finest sculptor in Augsburg during the 1520s. From October 1500 he resided with his uncle and teacher Gregor Erhart and probably travelled to Venice and northern Italy sometime prior to 1514, when he obtained Augsburg citizenship, married Susanna Spitzmacher and became a master sculptor. He is first mentioned in the city's tax records in 1516, at which time he was living in his father's house. Hans and Adolf probably shared a workshop until 1522, although Hans registered his first pupils in 1518 and 1521. During Easter week 1528, while Hans was in Vienna, the Augsburg officials raided his house and arrested Susanna and about 100 others during an Anabaptist celebration. Her subsequent fate is unknown, although approximately 100 Anabaptists left Augsburg for Strasbourg by 1529. It seems likely that she and the others were banished.

That Hans chose to remain in Augsburg suggests that he did not share his wife's religious beliefs. In 1530 he moved into the house of fellow sculptor Jacob Murmann (1467-1547), where he lived until September 1536, when he officially entered the service of Ulrich VI, Duke of Württemberg (reg. 1504-19 and 1534-50) in Stuttgart. His daughter Susanna Daucher married a goldsmith from Regensburg in 1540, and his son Abraham Daucher (c. 1525-c. 1592) worked as a goldsmith in Augsburg.