This Nuremberg painter was probably born around 1480-1485, the son of the painter Hans Traut from Speyer. He is first documented as a designer for some of the woodcuts for 'Der beschlossen gart des rosenkrantz marie' (The Closed Garden of the Rosary of Mary) from 1505, which were produced in Albrecht Dürer's workshop. A brief decade later, Dürer involved him in another large project, the woodcut 'Triumphal Arch of Emperor Maximilian'. In the meantime, Traut appears to have executed his first commissions for altarpieces working independently; for example, the high altar at St Johannis in Nuremberg, from shortly after 1511, is attributed to him. His most important work is the 'Artelshofen Altar' with the Holy Kinship from 1514, now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich; with its casual distribution of figures and bright colouring, it reflects the influence of Dürer's altar paintings. Beginning in 1513, Traut regularly worked for the Heilsbronn Abbey, which was furnished with a series of new altar retables under the abbot Sebald Bamberger. Shortly before his death, he worked on woodcuts for a publication of the 'Hallesches Heiltum', the collection of reliquaries collected by Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg.
