Johann Gottfried Steffan (1815, Wädenswil – 1905, Munich) was a prominent Swiss landscape painter of the 19th century and was one of the best-known representatives of the Munich School and Swiss Romanticism. After an apprenticeship as a print lithographer, Steffan travelled to Munich in 1833, where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts under Peter von Cornelius.
Steffan's studio in Munich became a gathering point for Swiss artists; Arnold Böcklin, worked in his studio for a certain time. Steffan went on study trips with his colleagues to the Swiss Alps, preferring the canton Glarus and Lake Walen. His mountain landscapes depict a sublime and idealized view of nature in which mankind appears devastatingly small.