Besides Abraham Mignon, Jeremias van Winghe, Johann Georg Trautmann and Johann Daniel Bager, Adam Elsheimer was the most famous Frankfurt painter. Already in his early years, Elsheimer had travelled to Rome where he became one of the founding fathers of Baroque painting. That the memory of this master was still kept alive in Frankfurt despite the fact that his work in general was not well known, is also reflected in the Städel collection. Two paintings were presented in the centre of the left cabinet wall: “The Birth of Adonis” (at the time interpreted as a “Bacchus with the Nymphs of Nisa”) and “St Paul and Barnabas at Lystra”. In 1878, both works were considered to be by Elsheimer’s hand. Today, however, we know that they were painted by Dutch contemporaries. The two small works on copper left and right of these pictures had traditionally been attributed to Elsheimer as well. By 1878, they were regarded as works by followers of the master.

Today, the Städel Museum houses the most prominent Elsheimer collection in the world. All of these original works, however, were acquired over the course of the twentieth century.