The Master of the Alpine Sublime: The Life of Johann Gottfried Steffan In the grand tapestry of nineteenth-century European art, few threads are as deeply woven into the rugged beauty of the Alps as those left by Johann Gottfried Steffan. Born on December 13, 1815, in the tranquil Swiss town of Wädenswil, Steffan emerged as one of the most significant Swiss landscapists of his era. His journey began not with a brush, but with the precise, disciplined hand of a lithographer, an apprenticeship completed in his hometown that would later grant him an unparalleled ability to render the intricate…