The brothers Cosmas Damian (1686-1739) and Egid Quirin (1692-1750) Asam, German artists who worked in architecture, painting, and sculpture, often as a team, achieved in their works a unity of the arts unequaled in Bavaria during the late baroque period.

The Asam brothers were sons of the painter Hans Georg Asam. Cosmas Damian was born on Sept. 28, 1686, and Egid Quirin on Sept. 1, 1692. They received their early training from their father. The brothers went to Rome in 1711, where they absorbed the style of the Roman high baroque, particularly from the work of the architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his followers. Upon their return to Bavaria, Cosmas Damian worked as a painter, and his brother continued his studies under the sculptor Andreas Faistenberger in Munich.

The brothers collaborated in 1718 in the construction and decoration of the church of the Benedictine Abbey of Weltenburg on the Danube, near Regensburg...