Author of an early manuscript biography of German artists. Neudörfer's father was a successful furrier and business person, Stephan Neudörffer. As an adult, Johann earned his living as a teacher of mathematics and geometry; his interest and contemporary fame rested on his renoun as a calligrapher. A life-long resident of Nuremberg, he lived on the same street as and was well acquainted with the artist Albrecht Dürer until Dürer's move in 1509.

Painter and author of an early history/biographical dictionary of artists, Teutsche Academie. Sandrart's father was a Calvinist who had fled Valenciennes, in the county of Hainaut (then under Spain) to Frankfurt. The younger Sandrart began a career as an artist, studying drawing. In 1620, he moved to Nuremberg, where he learned engraving. In Prague, the engraver Aegidius Sadeler advised him to specialize in painting. Around 1625, he became a pupil of the Dutch painter Gerard van Honthorst in Utrecht.