Background
Ethnicity:
Ary Scheffer’s father came from a German city named Kassel. He relocated to the Netherlands when he was a young man.
Ary Scheffer was born on February 10, 1796, in Dordrecht, Netherlands. He was a son of Johan Bernard Scheffer, and Cornelia Lamme, both portraitists. Scheffer was named in honour of his maternal grandfather, also a painter, Arie Lamme. Johan Bernard Scheffer had worked for one year, until his death in 1809, as a court painter of Louis Bonaparte in Amsterdam.
Ary had two brothers. One of them, Karel Arnold Scheffer was an author and journalist. The younger Scheffer’s brother, Hendrik Scheffer also worked as a painter.