1.
Anthony van Dyck
–
Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England, after enjoying great success in Italy and Flanders. He also painted biblical and mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draughtsman, the Van Dyke beard is named after him. Antoon van Dyck was born to parents in Antwerp. By the age of fifteen he was already an accomplished artist, as his Self-portrait, 1613–14. He was admitted to the Antwerp painters Guild of Saint Luke as a master by February 1618. His influence on the young artist was immense, Rubens referred to the nineteen-year-old van Dyck as the best of my pupils. At the same time the dominance of Rubens in the small and declining city of Antwerp probably explains why, despite his periodic returns to the city, van Dyck spent most of his career abroad. In 1620, at the instigation of George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, van Dyck went to England for the first time where he worked for King James I of England, receiving £100. After about four months he returned to Flanders, but moved on in late 1621 to Italy and he was already presenting himself as a figure of consequence, annoying the rather bohemian Northern artists colony in Rome, says Giovan Pietro Bellori, by appearing with the pomp of Zeuxis. He was mostly based in Genoa, although he travelled extensively to other cities. In 1627, he went back to Antwerp where he remained for five years, a life-size group portrait of twenty-four City Councillors of Brussels he painted for the council-chamber was destroyed in 1695. He was evidently very charming to his patrons, and, like Rubens, well able to mix in aristocratic and court circles, by 1630 he was described as the court painter of the Habsburg Governor of Flanders, the Archduchess Isabella. In this period he produced many religious works, including large altarpieces. King Charles I was the most passionate and generous collector of art among the British monarchs, and saw art as a way of promoting his elevated view of the monarchy. In 1628, he bought the collection that the Gonzagas of Mantua were forced to dispose of. In 1626, he was able to persuade Orazio Gentileschi to settle in England, later to be joined by his daughter Artemisia and some of his sons. Rubens was a target, who eventually came on a diplomatic mission, which included painting, in 1630. He was very well-treated during his visit, during which he was knighted
2.
National Gallery
–
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the century to 1900. The Gallery is a charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media. Its collection belongs to the public of the United Kingdom and entry to the collection is free of charge. It is among the most visited art museums in the world, after the Musée du Louvre, the British Museum, unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein, after that initial purchase the Gallery was shaped mainly by its early directors, notably Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, and by private donations, which comprise two-thirds of the collection. It used to be claimed that this was one of the few national galleries that had all its works on permanent exhibition, the present building, the third to house the National Gallery, was designed by William Wilkins from 1832 to 1838. Only the façade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time, wilkinss building was often criticised for the perceived weaknesses of its design and for its lack of space, the latter problem led to the establishment of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897. The Sainsbury Wing, an extension to the west by Robert Venturi, the current Director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi. The late 18th century saw the nationalisation of royal or princely art collections across mainland Europe, great Britain, however, did not emulate the continental model, and the British Royal Collection remains in the sovereigns possession today. In 1777 the British government had the opportunity to buy an art collection of international stature, the MP John Wilkes argued for the government to buy this invaluable treasure and suggested that it be housed in a noble gallery. The twenty-five paintings from that now in the Gallery, including NG1, have arrived by a variety of routes. This offer was declined and Bourgeois bequeathed the collection to his old school, Dulwich College, the collection opened in Britains first purpose-built public gallery, the Dulwich Picture Gallery, in 1814. The British Institution, founded in 1805 by a group of aristocratic connoisseurs, the members lent works to exhibitions that changed annually, while an art school was held in the summer months. However, as the paintings that were lent were often mediocre, some resented the Institution. One of the Institutions founding members, Sir George Beaumont, Bt, in 1823 another major art collection came on the market, which had been assembled by the recently deceased John Julius Angerstein. Angerstein was a Russian-born émigré banker based in London, his collection numbered 38 paintings, including works by Raphael, on 1 July 1823 George Agar Ellis, a Whig politician, proposed to the House of Commons that it purchase the collection. The appeal was given added impetus by Beaumonts offer, which came with two conditions, that the government buy Angersteins collection, and that a building was to be found
3.
Spice
–
A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring, coloring or preserving food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, sometimes, spices may be ground into a powder for convenience. Spices are sometimes used in medicine, religious rituals, cosmetics or perfume production, the spice trade developed throughout South Asia and Middle East by at least 2000 BCE with cinnamon and black pepper, and in East Asia with herbs and pepper. The Egyptians used herbs for mummification and their demand for exotic spices and herbs helped stimulate world trade. The word spice comes from the Old French word espice, which became epice, and which came from the Latin root spec, by 1000 BCE, medical systems based upon herbs could be found in China, Korea, and India. Early uses were connected with magic, medicine, religion, tradition, archaeological excavations have uncovered clove burnt onto the floor of a kitchen, dated to 1700 BCE, at the Mesopotamian site of Terqa, in modern-day Syria. The ancient Indian epic Ramayana mentions cloves, the Romans had cloves in the 1st century CE, as Pliny the Elder wrote about them. In the story of Genesis, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers to spice merchants, in the biblical poem Song of Solomon, the male speaker compares his beloved to many forms of spices. The earliest written records of spices come from ancient Egyptian, Chinese, the Ebers Papyrus from Early Egyptians that dates from 1550 B. C. E. Describes some eight hundred different medicinal remedies and numerous medicinal procedures, historians believe that nutmeg, which originates from the Banda Islands in Southeast Asia, was introduced to Europe in the 6th century BCE. Indonesian merchants traveled around China, India, the Middle East, Arab merchants facilitated the routes through the Middle East and India. This resulted in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria being the trading center for spices. The most important discovery prior to the European spice trade were the monsoon winds, sailing from Eastern spice cultivators to Western European consumers gradually replaced the land-locked spice routes once facilitated by the Middle East Arab caravans. Spices were among the most demanded and expensive available in Europe in the Middle Ages. Given medieval medicines main theory of humorism, spices and herbs were indispensable to balance humors in food, in addition to being desired by those using medieval medicine, the European elite also craved spices in the Middle Ages. An example of the European aristocracys demand for spice comes from the King of Aragon and he was specifically looking for spices to put in wine, and was not alone among European monarchs at the time to have such a desire for spice. Spices were all imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them expensive, from the 8th until the 15th century, the Republic of Venice had the monopoly on spice trade with the Middle East, and along with it the neighboring Italian city-states. The trade made the region rich and it has been estimated that around 1,000 tons of pepper and 1,000 tons of the other common spices were imported into Western Europe each year during the Late Middle Ages
4.
Haberdasher
–
A haberdasher is a person who sells small articles for sewing, such as buttons, ribbons, zips, or a mens outfitter. The sewing articles are called haberdashery, or notions, the word appears in Chaucers Canterbury Tales. Haberdashers were initially peddlers, thus sellers of small items such as needles, the word is thought to have no connection with an Old Norse word akin to the Icelandic haprtask, which means peddlers wares or the sack in which the peddler carried them. If that had been the case, a haberdasher would be close to a mercier. Since the word has no recorded use in Scandinavia, it is most likely derived from the Anglo-Norman hapertas, a haberdasher would retail small wares, the goods of the peddler, while a mercer would specialize in linens, silks, fustian, worsted piece-goods and bedding. Saint Louis IX, King of France 1226–70, is the saint of French haberdashers. In Belgium and elsewhere in Continental Europe, Saint Nicholas remains their patron saint, while Saint Catherine was adopted by the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers in the City of London
5.
Guild
–
A guild /ɡɪld/ is an association of artisans or merchants who control the practice of their craft in a particular town. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of tradesmen and they were organized in a manner something between a professional association, trade union, a cartel, and a secret society. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as meeting places, an important result of the guild framework was the emergence of universities at Bologna, Oxford and Paris, they originated as guilds of students as at Bologna, or of masters as at Paris. Usually the founders were free independent master craftsmen who hired apprentices, there were several types of guilds, including the two main categories of merchant guilds and craft guilds but also the frith guild and religious guild. In many cases became the governing body of a town. The Freedom of the City, effective from the Middle Ages until 1835, gave the right to trade, Trade guilds arose in the 14th century as craftsmen united to protect their common interest. The occasion for these oaths were drunken banquets held on December 26, gregory of Tours tells a miraculous tale of a builder whose art and techniques suddenly left him, but were restored by an apparition of the Virgin Mary in a dream. Michel Rouche remarks that the story speaks for the importance of practically transmitted journeymanship, in France, guilds were called corps de métiers. According to Viktor Ivanovich Rutenburg, Within the guild itself there was little division of labour. Thus, according to Étienne Boileaus Book of Handicrafts, by the century there were no less than 100 guilds in Paris. In Catalan towns, specially at Barcelona, guilds or gremis were a basic agent in the society, a shoemakers guild is recorded in 1208. In England, specifically in the City of London Corporation, more than 110 guilds, referred to as companies, survive today. Other groups, such as the Worshipful Company of Tax Advisers, have been formed far more recently, membership in a livery company is expected for individuals participating in the governance of The City, as the Lord Mayor and the Remembrancer. The guild system reached a state in Germany circa 1300 and held on in German cities into the 19th century. In the 15th century, Hamburg had 100 guilds, Cologne 80, the latest guilds to develop in Western Europe were the gremios of Spain, e. g. Valencia or Toledo. Not all city economies were controlled by guilds, some cities were free, in order to become a Master, a Journeyman would have to go on a three-year voyage called Journeyman years. The practice of the Journeyman years still exists in Germany and France, in Ghent, as in Florence, the woolen textile industry developed as a congeries of specialized guilds. The appearance of the European guilds was tied to the emergent money economy, before this time it was not possible to run a money-driven organization, as commodity money was the normal way of doing business
6.
Willem van Haecht
–
Willem van Haecht was a Flemish painter best known for his pictures of art galleries and collections. Willem van Haecht was born in Antwerp as the son of the landscape painter Tobias Verhaecht, Tobias Verhaecht was a prominent painter who had been the first teacher of Peter Paul Rubens. Willem was a pupil of his father and he worked in Paris from 1615 to 1619, and then travelled to Italy for about seven years. Van Haecht became a master in Antwerps guild of St. Luke in 1626 and this collection is represented in allegorical terms in the Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest. Alexander the Great Visiting the Studio of Apelles is another painting by van Haecht. It has significant documentary evidence as it is believed it is an image of elements drawn from Rubens collection. Haecht, Willem van, II, Grove Art Online, ISBN 0-300-07038-1 Media related to Willem van Haecht at Wikimedia Commons
7.
Cabinet of curiosities
–
Cabinets of curiosities were encyclopedic collections of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history, geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art, the Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater. The Kunstkammer conveyed symbolically the patrons control of the world through its indoor, the term cabinet originally described a room rather than a piece of furniture. The classic cabinet of curiosities emerged in the century, although more rudimentary collections had existed earlier. The earliest pictorial record of a natural history cabinet is the engraving in Ferrante Imperatos DellHistoria Naturale, some of the volumes doubtless represent his herbarium. Every surface of the ceiling is occupied with preserved fishes, stuffed mammals and curious shells. Examples of corals stand on the bookcases, above them, stuffed birds stand against panels inlaid with square polished stone samples, doubtless marbles and jaspers or fitted with pigeonhole compartments for specimens. Below them, a range of cupboards contain specimen boxes and covered jars, two of the most famously described seventeenth-century cabinets were those of Ole Worm, known as Olaus Wormius, and Athanasius Kircher. Often they would contain a mix of fact and fiction, including apparently mythical creatures, Worms collection contained, for example, what he thought was a Scythian Lamb, a woolly fern thought to be a plant/sheep fabulous creature. However he was responsible for identifying the narwhals tusk as coming from a whale rather than a unicorn. The specimens displayed were often collected during exploring expeditions and trading voyages, Cabinets of curiosities would often serve scientific advancement when images of their contents were published. The catalog of Worms collection, published as the Museum Wormianum, used the collection of artifacts as a point for Worms speculations on philosophy, science, natural history. Cabinets of curiosities were limited to those who could afford to create, many monarchs, in particular, developed large collections. A rather under-used example, stronger in art than other areas, was the Studiolo of Francesco I, frederick III of Denmark, who added Worms collection to his own after Worms death, was another such monarch. A third example is the Kunstkamera founded by Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg in 1714, many items were bought in Amsterdam from Albertus Seba and Frederik Ruysch. The fabulous Habsburg Imperial collection included important Aztec artifacts, including the feather head-dress or crown of Montezuma now in the Museum of Ethnology, similar collections on a smaller scale were the complex Kunstschränke produced in the early seventeenth century by the Augsburg merchant, diplomat and collector Philipp Hainhofer. The best preserved example is the one given by the city of Augsburg to King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in 1632, the curio cabinet, as a modern single piece of furniture, is a version of the grander historical examples. In 1714, Michael Bernhard Valentini published an early work, Museum Museorum
8.
Albert VII, Archduke of Austria
–
Albert VII was the ruling Archduke of Austria for a few months in 1619 and, jointly with his wife, Isabella Clara Eugenia, sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands between 1598 and 1621. Prior to this, he had been a cardinal, archbishop of Toledo, viceroy of Portugal and he succeeded his brother Matthias as reigning archduke of Lower and Upper Austria, but abdicated in favor of Ferdinand II the same year, making it the shortest reign in Austrian history. Archduke Albert was the son of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and Maria of Spain, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. He was sent to the Spanish Court at the age of eleven, initially he was meant to pursue an ecclesiastical career. On 3 March 1577 he was appointed cardinal by Pope Gregory XIII, with a dispensation because of his age of eighteen, and was given Santa Croce in Gerusalemme as his titular church. Philip II planned to make Albert archbishop of Toledo as soon as possible, in the meantime Albert only took lower orders. He was never ordained priest or bishop, and thus he resigned the See of Toledo in 1598 and he resigned the cardinalate in 1598. His clerical upbringing did however have an influence on his lifestyle. After the dynastic union with Portugal, Albert became the first viceroy of the kingdom, at the same time he was appointed Papal Legate and Grand Inquisitor for Portugal. As viceroy of Portugal he took part in the organization of the Great Armada of 1588, in 1593 Philip II recalled him to Madrid, where he would take a leading role in the government of the Spanish Monarchy. Two years later, the rebellious Hugh ONeill, Earl of Tyrone, after the death of Archduke Ernst in 1595, Albert was sent to Brussels to succeed his elder brother as Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands. He made his entry in Brussels on 11 February 1596 and his first priority was restoring Spains military position in the Low Countries. Spain was facing the forces of the Dutch Republic, England and France and had known nothing. During his first campaign season, Albert surprised his enemies by capturing Calais and nearby Ardres from the French and these successes were however offset by the third bankruptcy of the Spanish crown later that year. As a consequence,1597 was marked by a series of military disasters, stadholder Maurice of Orange captured the last Spanish strongholds that remained north of the great rivers, as well as the strategic town of Rheinberg in the Electorate of Cologne. Finally the Spanish Army of Flanders lost Amiens in September the same year to King Henry IV of France despite desperate efforts to relieve the place by Albert, with no more money to pay the troops, Albert was also facing a series of mutinies. While pursuing the war as well as he could, Albert made overtures for peace with Spains enemies, under the mediation of the papal legate Cardinal Alessandro deMedici — the future Pope Leo XI — Spain and France concluded the Peace of Vervins on 2 May 1598. Spain gave up its conquests, thereby restoring the situation of Cateau Cambrésis, France tacitly accepted the Spanish occupation of the prince-archbishopric of Cambray and pulled out of the war, but maintained the financial support for the Dutch Republic
9.
Isabella Clara Eugenia
–
Isabella Clara Eugenia was sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands in the Low Countries and the north of modern France, together with her husband Albert VII, Archduke of Austria. In some sources, she is referred to as Clara Isabella Eugenia, by birth, she was an infanta of Spain and Portugal. Isabella Clara Eugenia of Austria was born in the Palacio del bosque de Valsaín, Segovia on 12 August 1566, daughter of Philip II of Spain and her paternal grandparents were Emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal. Her maternal grandparents were Henry II of France and Catherine de Medici and her father, Philip II, was reportedly overjoyed at her birth and declared himself to be happier on the occasion than he would have been at the birth of a son. Isabellas mother, Elisabeth of Valois, had originally been betrothed to Don Carlos, despite the significant age difference between them, Philip was very attached to Elisabeth, staying close by her side even when she was ill with smallpox. Elisabeths first pregnancy in 1564 ended in a miscarriage of twin daughters and she later gave birth to Isabella Clara Eugenia on 12 August 1566, and then to Isabellas younger sister Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain 10 October 1567. Elisabeth miscarried a daughter in 1568 and died the same day, Isabella grew up with her sister Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain, beloved by her father and her stepmother Anna of Austria, Queen of Spain, Philips fourth wife. Philip ultimately fathered five children by Anna, all of whom died in childhood except his heir. Isabella was also the person whom Philip permitted to help him with his work, sorting his papers. Since 1568, at the age of two, Isabella Clara Eugenia was promised to marry Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, son of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, Maria was a daughter of her paternal grandparents Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and Isabella of Portugal. Isabella Clara Eugenia, however, had to wait for more than 20 years before the eccentric Rudolf declared that he had no intention of marrying anybody, at any rate, Isabella Clara Eugenias mother had ceded any claim to the French crown with her marriage to Philip II. However the Parlement de Paris, in power of the Catholic party and her father decided to cede the Spanish Netherlands to her on condition that she marry her cousin, Albert VII, Archduke of Austria. They were to reign over the Netherlands jointly as duke/count and duchess/countess and it was also stipulated that, should they have no children, the Netherlands would revert to the King of Spain upon the death of either spouse. On 18 April 1599, being 33 years old, she married Albert, Albert was the joint sovereign of the Seventeen Provinces and the former viceroy of Portugal. As Albert also was the Archbishop of Toledo, he had to be released from his religious commitments by Pope Clement VIII before the wedding could take place. Shortly before Philip II died on 13 September 1598, he renounced his rights to the Netherlands in favor of his daughter Isabella and her fiancé. Beginning in 1601, the couple ruled the Spanish Netherlands together, a false anecdote links Isabella, the siege of Ostend, and the horse coat colour isabelline. The reign of Albert and Isabella is considered the Golden Age of the Spanish Netherlands, the reign of the Archduke Albert of Austria and Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia is a key period in the history of the Spanish Netherlands
10.
Quentin Matsys
–
Quentin Matsys was a painter in the Flemish tradition and a founder of the Antwerp school. He was born at Leuven, where legend states he was trained as an ironsmith before becoming a painter, Matsys was active in Antwerp for over 20 years, creating numerous works with religious roots and satirical tendencies. Most early accounts of Matsys life are composed primarily of legend, according to J. Molanus Historiae Lovaniensium Matsys is known to be a native of Leuven with humble beginnings as an ironsmith. One of four children, Matsys was born to Joost Matsys, documented donations and possessions of Joost Matsys indicate that the family had a respectable income and that financial need was most likely not the reason Matsys turned to painting. During the period in which Matsys was active in Antwerp he took only four apprentices, Arian van Overbeke, Willem Muelenbroec, Eduart Portugalois and it is widely believed that Joachim Patinir studied with Matsys at some point during his career and contributed to several of his landscapes. Lack of guild records during this time leaves Matsys travels to Italy, for the most part, foreign influences on Matsys are inferred from his paintings and are considered to be a large portion of the artists training during the 16th century. During the greater part of the 15th century, the centres in which the painters of the Low Countries most congregated were Tournai, Bruges, Ghent, Leuven gained prominence toward the close of this period, employing workmen from all of the crafts including Matsys. Not until the beginning of the 16th century did Antwerp take the lead which it afterward maintained against Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, as a member of Antwerps Guild of Saint Luke, Matsys is considered to be one of its first notable artists. Although the roots of Matsys training are unknown, his style reflects the qualities of Dirk Bouts. When Matsys settled at Antwerp at the age of twenty-five, his own style contributed importantly to reviving Flemish art along the lines of Van Eyck, Matsys departed from Leuven in 1491 when he became a master in the guild of painters at Antwerp. He also painted altarpieces and triptych panels, the most famous of which was built for the Church of Saint Peter in Leuven. Matsys work is considered to contain strong religious feeling—characteristic of traditional Flemish works—and is accompanied by a realism that often favored the grotesque, Matsys works generally reflect earnestness in expression, minutely detailed renderings, and subdued effects in light and shade. Like most Flemish artists of the time he paid a great deal of attention to jewelry, edging of garments, strenuous effort is devoted to the expression of individual character. A satirical tendency may be seen in the pictures of merchant bankers, revealing their greed and avarice. His other impulse, dwelling on the feelings of tenderness, may be noted in two replicas of the Virgin and Child at Berlin and Amsterdam, where the ecstatic kiss of the mother seems rather awkward. An expression of acute despair may be seen in a Lucretia in the museum at Vienna, the remarkable glow of the colour in these works, however, makes the Mannerist exaggerations palatable. Matsys had considerable skill as a portrait painter and his Ægidius which drew from Thomas More a eulogy in Latin verse, is but one of many, to which one may add the portrait of Maximilian of Austria in the gallery in Amsterdam. In this branch of his practice, Matsys was greatly influenced by his fellow countryman Jan Mabuse, Matsys portraiture exhibits highly personal and individual emotional characteristics that reflect his adherence to realism as a technique
11.
Jan van Eyck
–
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish/Netherlandish painter active in Bruges. He is often considered one of the founders of Early Netherlandish painting school, the few surviving records of his early life indicate that he was born c. After Johns death in 1425 he was employed in Lille as court painter to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, until 1429 before moving to Bruges, where he lived until his death. Apart from the Ghent Altarpiece and the miniatures of the Turin-Milan Hours, about 20 surviving paintings are confidently attributed to him. Ten, including the Ghent altarpiece, are dated and signed with a variation of his motto, ALS IK KAN always written in Greek characters, Van Eyck painted both secular and religious subject matter, including altarpieces, single panel religious figures and commissioned portraits. His work includes single panels, diptychs, triptychs, and polyptych panels and he was well paid by Philip, who sought that the painter was secure financially and had artistic freedom and could paint whenever he pleased. Van Eycks work comes from the International Gothic style, but he soon eclipsed it, through his developments in the use of oil paint he achieved a new level of virtuosity. Van Eyck was highly influential and his techniques and style were adopted and refined by the Early Netherlandish painters, little is known of Jan van Eycks early life and neither the date nor place of his birth is documented. This suggests a date of birth of 1395 at the latest, however, his apparent age in the London probable self-portrait of 1433 suggests to most scholars a date closer to 1380. He was identified in the late 1500s as having been born in Maaseik and this claim is still considered credible on etymological grounds, considering that Van Eyck means of Eyck which is an old variant spelling of eik. He had a sister Margareta, and at least two brothers, Hubert and Lambert, both painters, but the order of their births has not been established. Another significant, and rather younger, painter who worked in Southern France and it is not known where Jan was educated, but he had knowledge of Latin and used the Greek and Hebrew alphabets in his inscriptions, indicating that he was schooled in the classics. This level of education was rare among painters, and would have made him attractive to the cultivated Philip. Van Eyck served John of Bavaria-Straubing, ruler of Holland, Hainault, by this time van Eyck had assembled a small workshop and was involved in redecorating the Binnenhof palace in The Hague. After Johns death in 1425 he moved to Bruges and came to the attention of Philip the Good c and his emergence as a collectable painter generally follows his appointment to Philips court, and from this point his activity in the court is comparatively well documented. He served as court artist and diplomat, and a was a member of the Tournai painters guild. On 18 October 1427, the Feast of St. Luke, he travelled to Tournai to attend a banquet in his honour, also attended by Robert Campin, a court salary freed him from commissioned work, and allowed a large degree of artistic freedom. Over the following decade van Eycks reputation and technical ability grew, unlike most of his peers his reputation never diminished and he remained well regarded over the following centuries
12.
Frans Snyders
–
Frans Snyders or Frans Snijders was a Flemish painter of animals, hunting scenes, market scenes and still lifes. He was one of the earliest specialist animaliers and he is credited with initiating a wide variety of new still-life and he was a regular collaborator with leading Antwerp painters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens. Snyders was born in Antwerp as the son of Jan Snijders, according to legend the famous 16th century painter Frans Floris squandered his fortune in the inn. His brother Michiel also became a painter but no works of him are known, Snyders was recorded as a student of Pieter Brueghel the Younger in 1593, and subsequently trained with Hendrick van Balen, who was the first master of Anthony van Dyck. Snyders became a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1602 and he travelled to Italy in 1608-9 where he first resided in Rome. The artist subsequently traveled from Rome to Milan, Jan Brueghel the Elder had introduced him there by letter to the famous art collector Cardinal Borromeo. Brueghel asked Snyders to paint a copy after a portrait by Titian in the Borromeo collection and this is regarded as evidence that Snyders was a skilled figure painter before he turned his attention to still life painting. Snyders had returned to Antwerp in the spring of 1609, in 1611 he married Margaretha, the sister of Cornelis de Vos and Paul de Vos, two leading painters in Antwerp. His collaboration with Rubens started in the 1610s, Snyders had many patrons including the Ghent Bishop Antonius Triest who commissioned four paintings of market scenes around 1615. He was a friend of van Dyck who painted Snyders and his more than once. Snyders was commercially successful and was able to purchase a house on the high-end Keizerstraat in Antwerp, in 1628 he became the dean of the Guild of Saint Luke. In the period 1636-1638 he was one of the Antwerp artists who assisted Rubens in a commission for decorations for the hunting pavilion Torre de la Parada of Philip IV of Spain. The two artists worked together on decorations for the Royal Alcazar of Madrid and the royal Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid. Snyders painted about 60 hunting paintings and animal pieces after designs by Rubens, in 1639 Rubens and Snyders received a follow-up commission for an additional 18 paintings for the hunting pavilion. After Peter Paul Rubens death Snyders acted as one of the appraisers of the inventory of Rubens collection, in the years 1641 and 1642 Snyders traveled with other artists to the Dutch Republic. In 1646 Snyders was probably in Breda working on a commission, Snyders became a widower in 1647. He died himself on 19 August 1657 in Antwerp and he died childless and bequeathed his fortune to his sister, a beguine. His pupils are believed to have included Nicasius Bernaerts, Peter van Boucle, Juriaen Jacobsze, Jan Roos, Jan Fyt was a student, and then assistant of Snyders from 1629
13.
Adam Elsheimer
–
Adam Elsheimer was a German artist working in Rome who died at only thirty-two, but was very influential in the early 17th century in the field of Baroque paintings. His relatively few paintings were small scale, nearly all painted on copper plates and they include a variety of light effects, and an innovative treatment of landscape. He was an influence on other artists, including Rembrandt. Elsheimer was born in Frankfurt am Main, one of ten children and his fathers house was a few metres from the church where Albrecht Dürers Heller Altarpiece was then displayed. He was apprenticed to the artist Philipp Uffenbach and he probably visited Strasbourg in 1596. At the age of twenty, he travelled to Italy via Munich and his stay in Venice is undocumented, but the influence on his style is clear. He probably worked as an assistant to Johann Rottenhammer, some of whose drawings he owned, Rottenhammer was a German who had been living in Italy for some years, and was the first German painter to specialize in cabinet paintings. In early 1600, Elsheimer arrived in Rome and quickly made friends with contacts of Rottenhammer, notably Giovanni Faber, a Papal doctor, botanist and collector originally from Bamberg. He was Curator of the Vatican Botanical Garden, and a member of the Accademia dei Lincei, a small intellectual coterie founded in 1603, like Faber, Bril was a long-term resident in Rome who had converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism, as Elsheimer did later. Both Faber and Bril knew Rubens, who was in Rome in 1601, and he knew David Teniers the Elder, recently Rubens pupil, and there is evidence that they lodged together. In 1604 Karel van Mander, a Dutchman recently returned from Rome, published his Schilder-Boeck which praised Elsheimers work and he also spent much time in churches, studying the works of the masters. Other writers mention his exceptional memory, his melancholy and his kind-heartedness. In 1606, Elsheimer married Carola Antonia Stuarda da Francoforte, the son was not mentioned in a census a year later, possibly because he had been put out to a wet-nurse. She was the recent widow of the artist Nicolas de Breul and after Elsheimers death remarried an Italian artist, Ascanio Quercia, Elsheimer converted to Catholicism by 1608. He was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, the Roman painters Guild, in 1606, in spite of his fame and talents, he appears to have both lived and died in difficult financial circumstances. Elsheimers painting of Tobias and the Angel was especially well received because of its new conception of landscape and this picture was engraved by Count Hendrick Goudt and as a result was published across Europe. However, his association with Goudt, who lodged and trained him for several years, was difficult. Elsheimer seems to have borrowed money from Goudt, which according to one account resulted in his incarceration in Debtors prison
14.
Peter Paul Rubens
–
Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter. He is widely considered as the most notable artist of Flemish Baroque art school, the catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop. His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects and he painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house and he also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not overly detailed and he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. For altarpieces he painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. Rubens was born in the city of Siegen to Jan Rubens and he was named in honour of Saint-Peter and Paul, because he was born on their solemnety. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the adviser of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange. Following Jan Rubens imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577, the family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his fathers death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting. In Antwerp, Rubens received a Renaissance humanist education, studying Latin, by fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort. Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master. In 1600 Rubens travelled to Italy and he stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colouring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an effect on Rubenss painting. With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601, there, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters
15.
Pieter Aertsen
–
Pieter Aertsen, called Lange Pier because of his height, was a Dutch painter in the style of Northern Mannerism. He is credited with the invention of the genre scene. He was active in his native city Amsterdam but also worked for a period in Antwerp. His genre scenes were influential on later Flemish Baroque painting, Dutch still life painting and his peasant scenes preceded by a few years the much better-known paintings produced in Antwerp by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. He was apprenticed with Allaert Claesz and he then travelled to the Southern Netherlands and took up residence in Antwerp, first with his compatriot Jan Mandijn. Aertsen became a member of Antwerps Guild of Saint Luke, in the official books of the Guild he is recorded as Langhe Peter, schilder. In 1542 he became a citizen of Antwerp and he also got married to Kathelijne Beuckelaar, the daughter and sister of an Antwerp painter and aunt of Joachim Beuckelaer and Huybrecht Beuckeleer. Of the couples eight children, three sons, Pieter, Aert, and Dirk became successful painters, Aertsen returned to Amsterdam in 1555-56. Notable pupils who trained in his workshop included Stradanus and Aertsens nephews, Joachim Beuckelaer, Joachim Beuckelaer continued and further developed Aertsens style and subject matter of painting. A similar inversion in landscape painting had developed by Joachim Patinir in Antwerp several decades earlier when he invented the world landscape. Unlike these, in Aertsens works the genre dominates the front of the image, with the history scene, normally religious. The sign at top right advertises the land behind as for sale, the painting offers the viewer a range of options for life, in an allegory on physical and spiritual food. The painting carries the coat of arms of Antwerp, suggesting it was a civic commission, such subjects were mostly painted before about 1560. In the Renaissance, the example of the painter Peiraikos, known only from Pliny the Elder, was important in justifying genre. One surviving religious work is the Crucifixion in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, unlike Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Aertsens genre figures were mostly depicted idealized with considerable dignity and no effort at comedy, using poses that ultimately derived from classical art. In some cases appear to have been borrowed from the contemporary court portraiture of artists such as Anthonis Mor. Falkenberg, R. L. Pieter Aertsen, Rhyparographer,1995 Falkenberg, R. L. Northern Renaissance Art,1985, Harry N. Abrams, ISBN0136235964 Sullivan, Margaret A. Aertsens Kitchen and Market Scenes, Audience and Innovation in Northern Art, The Art Bulletin, Vol.81, No
16.
Wierix family
–
They were active in Antwerp and Brussels. The first generation of engravers consisted of the three sons of the painter and cabinet maker Anton Wierix I, Johannes Wierix Wierix, Hieronymus Wierix. Anton IIs son, Anton III Wierix, completes the engraver members of the family, all were highly productive, with 2,333 prints catalogued between them, the largest number by Johannes. The Wierix family members were known for their attention to detail, Johannes and Hieronymus appear to have begun training together, and although Hieronymus was the younger by four years he was able to keep pace with his brother. Even for that period they were precocious, with very fine copies of other prints dated from the age of 12 in Hieronymuss case and their copies of engravings by Albrecht Dürer from this period are still valued by collectors. Who their master was is unknown – it was unlikely to be their father, Johannes and Hieronymus first worked producing book illustrations for the large publishing concern of Christopher Plantin in Antwerp. Hieronymus was first paid by Plantin in 1570, and they joined the Antwerp artists Guild of Saint Luke in 1572/3. Johannes probably trained Anton II, and Hieronymus, Anton III, the brothers often worked together, but Johannes moved to Delft from 1577–79, probably as a result of the Sack of Antwerp in 1576, also known as the Spanish Fury. The brothers were recorded as Lutherans in 1585, but as they later did a large amount of work for the Jesuits, however the productivity and quality of their work gives a rather different picture. The father of Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten was another pupil of Hieronymus, Johannes pupils included Hendrik Hondius I. After Anton II died relatively young in 1604, Hieronymus took over his plates, Anton IIIs death at an even younger age brought an end to the family business, although at least one of the brothers many daughters married an engraver. Johannes did more work for Plantin than Hieronymus, amounting to over 120 plates by 1576, most of their work was based on compositions by another artist, whether a painting, drawing or print. In ambitious original compositions, the brothers could not match the work of their contemporary Hendrik Goltzius and other Dutch engravers and he had asked the literary Jesuit Jerome Nadal to prepare the text, and 154 drawings had been produced by various artists, mostly Italian. Plantin had agreed to publish the work, but with the disruption of the Spanish Fury of 1576, had not done so by his death, after attempting to find engravers elsewhere, the Jesuits, in the person of Fr Ferdinand Ximenez, took the brothers on. The prints were published in a separate volume from the text in 1593. They were intended as models of faithful depictions of the incidents of the Gospels, the apparent setting of most interior scenes in a wealthy Antwerp merchants house does not contribute to the desired effect in modern eyes. Further work for the Jesuits followed, Hieronymus in particular came to specialize in small religious scenes. Some of Johannes drawings were made to be engraved, but others were sold as finished objects, the British Museum has 44, including 19 illustrating the Book of Genesis, and a large composition of Diana surprised by Actaeon
17.
Jan Wildens
–
Jan Wildens was a Flemish painter and draughtsman specializing in landscapes. His Realist landscapes show an eye for detail and have a serene character and he was a regular collaborator with Rubens and other leading Flemish Baroque painters of his generation for whose compositions he painted the landscapes. Jan Wildens was born in Antwerp as the son of Hendrick Wildens and his father died when Jan was still young and his mother remarried to Cornelis Cock, who later became the father in law of the Antwerp portrait painter Cornelis de Vos. In 1596 Jan Wildens was registered at the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke as an apprentice of Pieter van der Hulst, Wildens became a master of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1604. He set up his own workshop and took Abraham Leerse on as an apprentice in 1610, from this period date a series of 12 drawings of the months, which were engraved and published in print form. Wildens travelled in 1613 or 1614 to Italy where he stayed until 1616, around 1615-1616 he created a series of 12 landscape paintings representing the 12 months of the year, roughly similar to his early drawings. These paintings show his increasing interest in Realism, which was likely a result of his exposure to the landscapes of his compatriot Paul Bril who worked in Rome, upon returning to Antwerp, he became a frequent collaborator and a close friend of Peter Paul Rubens. Wildens was responsible for the landscapes in the cartoons by Rubens for his series on Publius Decius Mus. The two artists continued to collaborate on many works, Wildens also became a frequent collaborator of other leading Antwerp painters. In 1619 Wildens married Maria Stappaert with Rubens acting as a witness at the wedding, marias niece Hélène Fourment later became Rubens second wife. Maria Stappaert died in 1624 after bearing Wildens two sons, both of whom became painters, Jan Baptist and Jeremias, both of his sons died young. Wildens became very prosperous thanks to his professional success, Rubens was in overall charge of this project. Wildens contributed two city views of Antwerp for the occasion, in the house he inherited from his mother in the Lange Nieuwstraat in Antwerp he opened a picture gallery with over 700 paintings. The gallery was very successful and was later be run by his son Jeremias, when Rubens died in 1640, Jan Wildens acted as a testamentary executor or his estate. His pupils included his sons Jan Baptist and Jeremias and Hendrick van Balen the Younger, Jan Wildens was a landscape specialist. The compositions of his early landscapes before his visit to Italy were influenced by such as Jan Brueghel the Younger, Gillis van Coninxloo, Joos de Momper. In this early period he produced a series of 12 drawings of the months, as was not uncommon at the time the prints sharply contrast agricultural labors and courtly urban diversions. In Italy Wildens discovered the art of his compatriot Paul Bril with its realism
18.
Venus de' Medici
–
The Venus de Medici or Medici Venus is a lifesize Hellenistic marble sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite. It is housed in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy, the goddess is depicted in a fugitive, momentary pose, as if surprised in the act of emerging from the sea, to which the dolphin at her feet alludes. The dolphin would not have been a support for the bronze original. It bears a Greek inscription CLEOMENES SON OF APOLLODORUS OF ATHENS on its base, the restorations of the arms was made by Ercole Ferrata, who gave them long tapering Mannerist fingers that did not begin to be recognized as out of keeping with the sculpture until the 19th century. Though this particular variant is not identifiable in any extant literature, it must have been known to Greek. Among replicas and fragments of less importance, the closest in character and finest in quality is a marble Aphrodite at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the origin of the Venus is undocumented, its reputation seems to have grown up gradually, Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny remarked. Though visitors to Rome like John Evelyn found it a miracle of art, it was sent to Florence in August 1677, its export permitted by Innocent XI because, it was thought, after Napoleons fall it arrived back in Florence on 27 December 1815. The marble Aphrodite at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is a replica of the Venus de Medici. The pose of the head is not in doubt, for it did not break off when other breaks occurred, the Medici Venus is one of the most-copied antiquities. Louis XIV had no less than five, marbles by Carlier, Clérion, Coysevox and Frémery, the Venus de Medici was even reproduced in Sèvres biscuit porcelain, which had the matte whiteness of marble. American sculptor Hiram Powers based his 1844 statue The Greek Slave on the Venus de Medici, is also possible to admire a wonderful replica in white Carrara Marble hand carved by Niccolò Bazzanti of Pietro Bazzanti e Figlio Art Gallery of Florence at Museo Civico Revoltella, Trieste. Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique, The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–19001981 Guido Mansuelli, Galleria degli Uffizi, media related to Venus de Medici at Wikimedia Commons
19.
Farnese Hercules
–
Like much Ancient Roman sculpture it is a copy or version of a much older Greek original that was well-known, in this case an original by Lysippos that would have been made in the fourth century BC. The enlarged copy was made for the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, where the statue was recovered in 1546, the heroically-scaled Hercules is one of the most famous sculptures of antiquity, and has fixed the image of the mythic hero in the European imagination. The Farnese Hercules is a marble statue, following a lost original cast in bronze through a method called lost wax casting. It depicts a muscular, yet weary, Hercules leaning on his club, in myths about Heracles, killing the lion was his first task. He has just performed one of the last of The Twelve Labours, the type was well known in antiquity, and among many other versions a Hellenistic or Roman bronze reduction, found at Foligno is in the Musée du Louvre. A small Roman marble copy can be seen in the Museum of the Ancient Agora, the rediscovered statue quickly made its way into the collection of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, grandson of Pope Paul III. Alessandro Farnese was well placed to one of the greatest collections of classical sculpture that has been assembled since Antiquity. The Farnese statue was moved to Naples in 1787 with most of the Farnese Collection and is now displayed in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale there, the sculpture has been reassembled and restored by degrees. The original legs, from the Borghese collection, were not reunited with the sculpture until 1787, goethe, in his Italian Journey, recounts his differing impressions upon seeing the Hercules with each set of legs, however, marvelling at the clear superiority of the original ones. Hercules is caught in a moment of repose. Leaning on his club which is draped with the pelt of the Nemean Lion, he holds the apples of the Hesperides. Many engravings and woodcuts spread the fame of the Farneses Hercules, in 1590–91, during his trip to Rome, Hendrik Goltzius sketched the statue in the palazzo courtyard. Later Goltzius recorded the less-common rear view, in a bravura engraving, the young Rubens made quick sketches of the planes and massing of the statue of Hercules. Before photography, prints were the way to put the image into many hands. The sculpture was admired from the start, reservations about its exaggerated musculature only surfacing in the eighteenth century. Napoleon remarked to Antonio Canova that its omission from the museum he accumulated in Paris was the most important gap in the collection, more than once, the sculpture was crated and made ready for shipment to Paris before the Napoleonic regime fled Naples. Ancient copies of the include, Hercules, 2nd century AD, Roman copy, Uffizi Gallery. The “Weary Herakles” is a Roman marble statue that was excavated in 1980 in Perge, Turkey, colossal statue of Hercules, uncovered at the baths in Hippo Regius, Algeria
20.
Apollo Belvedere
–
The Apollo Belvedere or Apollo of the Belvedere—also called the Pythian Apollo—is a celebrated marble sculpture from Classical Antiquity. It was rediscovered in central Italy in the late 15th century and it is now found in the Cortile delle Statue of the Pio-Clementine Museum of the Vatican Museums complex. The Greek god Apollo is depicted as a standing archer having just shot an arrow, alternatively, it may be the slaying of the giant Tityos, who threatened his mother Leto, or the episode of the Niobids. The large white marble sculpture is 2.24 m high and its complex contrapposto has been much admired, appearing to position the figure both frontally and in profile. The arrow has just left Apollos bow and the effort impressed on his musculature still lingers. His hair, lightly curled, flows in ringlets down his neck and rises gracefully to the summit of his head, which is encircled with the strophium and his quiver is suspended across his left shoulder. He is entirely nude except for his sandals and a robe clasped at his shoulder, turned up on his left arm. The lower part of the arm and the left hand were missing when discovered and were restored by Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli. The Apollo is thought to be a Roman copy of Hadrianic date of a lost bronze original made between 350 and 325 BC by the Greek sculptor Leochares. It was, however, sketched twice during the last decade of the 15th century in the book of drawings by a pupil of Domenico Ghirlandaio, apostoli, Deborah Brown has shown, and not at his titular church, as had been assumed. Once it was installed in the Cortile, however, it became renowned. Albrecht Dürer reversed the Apollos pose for his Adam in a 1504 engraving of Adam and Eve, suggesting that he saw it in Rome. It became the Apollo of the Cortile del Belvedere, and the name has remained with it, though the sculpture has long been indoors, in the Museo Pio-Clementino at the Vatican Museums, Rome. In addition to Dürer, several artists during the late Renaissance sketched the Apollo, including Michelangelo, Bandinelli. In the 1530s it was engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi, whose printed image transmitted the famous pose throughout Europe and its noble simplicity and quiet grandeur, as he described it, became one of the leading lights of neo-classicism and an icon of the Enlightenment. Goethe, Schiller and Byron all endorsed it, the Apollo was one of the artworks brought to Paris by Napoleon after his 1796 Italian Campaign. From 1798 it formed part of the collection of the Louvre during the First Empire, the neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova adapted the works fluency to his marble Perseus in 1801. After the fall of Napoleon, the Apollo was repatriated to the Vatican where it has remained ever since, the Romantic movement was not so kind to the Apollos critical reputation
21.
Woman Bathing (van Eyck)
–
Woman Bathing is a lost panel painting by the Early Netherlandish artist Jan van Eyck. It is unique in van Eycks known oeuvre for portraying a nude in secular setting, although there is mention in two 17th-century literary sources of other now lost but equally erotic van Eyck panels. The attribution of either panel to an original by van Eyck is usually not contested,1441, it is accepted that neither is a forgery or wishful thinking. Art historians broadly consider it likely that both were copied from a source, that is, one is not a copy of the other. Van Eycks original was atypically daring and unusually erotic for a painting of the 1420s – early 1430s when it was presumably completed. Apart from its own qualities, it is interesting to art due to the many similarities of the Harvard panel to his to famous 1434 London Arnolfini Portrait. It shows a woman taking a sponge bath in an interior setting accompanied by a maid in a red gown. The woman preserves her modesty with a wash cloth held in her hand as she reaches with her right towards a basin placed on a side-table. A convex mirror hangs from a bar in the shuttered window above the basin. Her bedchamber is richly detailed, there is a bed to the right, a tall folding chair against the back wall. An orange rests on the windowsill and there are discarded pattens on the floor in the left corner. Two other possible works by van Eyck of this style are known from descriptions only, in 1456, the Italian humanist Bartolomeo Facio described a panel in the collection of Ottaviano della Carda, a nephew of Federico da Montefeltro. In the panel, sometimes known as Bathing Woman, the woman is attended by an older clothed maid as she emerges from her bath in a veil of fine linen which leaves only her head and breasts exposed. Facios description includes details of a dog, a burning lamp similar to the one in the Arnolfini Portrait, Facio mentions the innovative use of a mirror, which in the work is full length and reflects the entire back of the womans body. There are many similarities, especially with the Fogg panel, to van Eycks famous London Arnolfini Portrait, while the former is much narrower and much smaller at 27.2 cm x 16.3 cm, it is around a third the size of the London portrait. Art historian Linda Seidel speculates that it was created as a panel. The London panel, she observes, may have been painted for the wall of Giovanna Cenamis fathers house where she would have seen it in the years between her betrothal and her marriage. The erotic half may have given to her future husband as guarantee of what he was promised
22.
Paul Bril
–
Paul Bril was a Flemish painter and printmaker principally known for his landscapes. He spent most of his career in Rome. His Italianate landscapes had a influence on landscape painting in Italy. Paul Bril is believed to have born in Antwerp although his birth place may have been Breda. He was the son of the painter Matthijs Bril the Elder, Paul and his older brother Matthijs likely started their artistic training with their father in Antwerp. Paul may also have been a student of the Antwerp painter Damiaen Wortelmans who was specialised in the decoration of harpsichords, Matthijs moved to Rome probably around 1575. Here he worked on frescoes in the Vatican Palace. It is believed Paul joined his brother in Rome around or after 1582, when Matthijs died in 1583, his brother likely continued his work, picking up many of Matthijs commissions. Pauls earliest known date from the late 1580s. He established his reputation with commissions from Pope Gregorius XIII in the Collegio Romano and his success was assured after Pope Sixtus V became his principal patron. Another important early commission was the cycle in the Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome of around 1599. Pope Clement VIII also became his patron and gave the artist a commission for a seascape on the Martyrdom of St. Clement. Paul Bril completed this commission in the Vatican Palace’s Sala Clementina in collaboration with the brothers Giovanni, in 1601 Paul received another major commission, to paint a series of large canvases featuring properties of the Mattei family. Paul further painted landscape frescoes in the Casino dellAurora of the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi in Rome, in 1621, Paul Bril became director of the Accademia di San Luca, the artists academy in Rome. This was a sign of the high esteem in which he was held by his fellow artists in Rome as he was the first foreigner to hold this position. He had many students including his son Cyriacus Bril, Luigi Carboni, Balthasar Lauwers, Willem van Nieulandt II, Pieter Spierinckx, Agostino Tassi, karel Philips Spierincks may also briefly have been his pupil. Paul Bril died in Rome in 1626, Paul Bril initially painted in the late Mannerist style developed by his brother. These early landscapes are in the Flemish tradition inaugurated by Joachim Patinir, works from this early period were characterised by a picturesque arrangement of landscape elements and violent contrasts between light and dark
23.
Daniel Seghers
–
Daniël Seghers or Daniel Seghers was a Flemish Jesuit brother and painter who specialized in flower still lifes. He is particularly known for his contributions to the genre of flower garland painting. His paintings were collected enthusiastically by aristocratic patrons and he had followers and imitators. He moved with his mother to the Dutch Republic, probably Utrecht around 1601, following the death of his father Pieter and he possibly started his initial training as an artist in Utrecht. The young artist returned to Antwerp by 1611, where he was enrolled in the Guild of Saint Luke as a pupil of Jan Brueghel the Elder, Seghers re-converted to Catholicism and in 1614 he became a novice in the Jesuit order in Mechelen. Seghers is recorded in Brussels in 1621 where he is known to have produced two flower paintings for the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. In 1625 Seghers took his vows as a Jesuit priest. Sources differ regarding his status in the Jesuit order, some claim that he was ordained a priest in 1625, after his ordination in 1625 Seghers left for Rome where he stayed for two years. The composition is referred to as Double wreath surrounding a medaillion with the triumph of love, Seghers returned to his native city in 1627 where he continued to work as a painter for the remainder of this life. Seghers was visited in his studio in Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, Queen Christina of Sweden and Charles II and he is known to have painted a cartouche of flowers for Charles II. His work was much admired by his fellow artists, including Rubens. His pupils included Jan Philip van Thielen, Ottmar Elliger and Ignace Raeth, Seghers was exclusively a flower painter. It is not easy to establish a chronology for Seghers paintings since he dated his works in the period 1635-1651. Possibly there was a development in his flower garlands from the initial almost uniform garlands towards garlands composed of three or four groups of flowers. Stylistically, there is clearly in his work a recognisable influence of Jan Brueghel the Elder. From 1630 on Seghers strived for a painting of flowers in arrangements that look more natural. His flowers in this later period light up against a background and have a sculptural character. He had a preference for locally-grown roses and tulips that are just about to bloom, in his detailed rendering of flowers and plants, Seghers betrayed the skill of a miniaturist
24.
The Money Changer and His Wife
–
The Money Changer and His Wife is a 1514 oil on panel painting by the Flemish renaissance artist Quentin Matsys in the collection of the Louvre. A man, weighing the jewels and pieces of gold on the table in front of him next to his wife who is reading a book of devotion with an illustration of the Virgin. The couple is not dressed as members of nobility, but rather as well-to-do burghers of Antwerp, at the time, Antwerp had grown with the influx of many southern immigrants fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Among this international community there was a demand for money-changers and money-lenders, the same motief was used 25 years later by Matsys follower, the painter Marinus van Reymerswaele. This painting was copied in a painting of the gallery of Cornelis van der Geest by Willem van Haecht a full century later in the 1620s, van der Geest was an admirer of Matsys work and owned several of his paintings, including this one. He also commemorated Matsys hundredth death anniversary with a new plaque in the Antwerp Cathedral, painting record on museum website painting record in RKD
25.
The Reconciliation of Esau and Jacob
–
The Reconciliation of Esau and Jacob is a 1624 painting by Peter Paul Rubens. Originally in the Spanish royal collection, it was sent to Germany by Maria Anna of Neuburg to her brother Johann Wilhelm and it is now in the Staatsgalerie Schleissheim near Munich. It shows the story of meeting between Jacob and Esau. It was the model for a painting by Abraham Willemsen and this painting was featured in Willem van Haechts Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest with Joseph and Potiphars wife, 1630s
26.
Portrait of a Commander
–
Portrait of a Commander or A Commander Being Dressed for Battle is a portrait of an unknown man in plate armour, normally attributed to Peter Paul Rubens. In July 2010 it was sold for £9 million by Christies after Sothebys turned it down, in December 2011, the portrait was placed on loan with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The painting, done in oil on panel, measures 48.25 ×38 3/8 in and it depicts a military commander, as shown by his baton, being dressed by pages. The identity of the commander is unknown, although Charles V, Cornelis van der Geest, the Christies cataloguer felt that the commander appears too idealized to be an actual person. The painting has been praised for its crisp and intense hue, if by Rubens, it would have been painted around 1613. It was sold at the end of the Christies estimate of between £8m and £12m to Konrad Bernheimer for £9 million. For more than 100 years, it was attributed to the School of Porbus and it was not attributed to Rubens until after World War II. According to Brian Sewell, it is an uncomfortable Rubens and the attribution doesnt quite ring true, a panel of academics employed by Christies examined the portrait and ultimately concluded that the painting is a genuine Rubens
27.
Sebastiano del Piombo
–
Never a very disciplined or productive painter, his artistic productivity fell still further after this, which committed him to attend on the pope most days, and travel with him. He also had to take orders as a friar, despite having a wife. He now painted mostly portraits, and relatively few works of his survive compared to his contemporaries in Rome. This limited his involvement with the Mannerist style of his later years, having achieved success as a lutanist in Venice when young, he turned to painting and trained with Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. He painted portraits and religious subjects in oils, and once he was established avoided the large fresco schemes that took up so much of the time of Raphael and Michelangelo. His subsequent influence was limited by his lack of prominent pupils, compared to Raphael at least, Sebastiano del Piombo was probably born in Venice, though there is no certainty as to his background. His birthdate is extrapolated from Vasaris statement that he was 62 at his death in 1547 and that he was first known as a lutanist may suggest an upper-middle class background, the extent to which his lute-playing was professional is unclear. Like his contemporary Raphael, his career was marked by his ability to get on well with other artists and patrons. No signed or firmly documented works survive from his painting in Venice. As with other artists, some of Sebastianos works have long confused with Giorgiones. Like Titian, he may have completed some works left unfinished at Giorgiones death in 1510, the earliest significant work attributed to him is a portrait of a girl in Budapest, of about 1505. He is now assigned the unfinished and reworked Judgement of Solomon now at Kingston Lacy. Still over 2 x 3 metres, it originally to have been even larger. There are two versions of the elaborate architectural background, which was a recurrent interest of Sebastianos Venetian period, the last setting is in a basilica, which may reflect a more learned picture intended for a building holding courts of justice. Four standing figures of saints in niches on the organ-shutters of San Bartolomeo, Venice, now in the Gallerie dellAccademia in Venice, 1508-09, and are very Giorgionesque, especially the pair on the insides. The outside pair of shutters also show what Sebastiano had learnt from Bellini and their technique has developed from the earlier smooth surface to the application of paint in heavy brushstrokes, and the figure of Saint Sebastian shows awareness of classical sculpture. The organ-shutters for the church were also painted, the style shows developments towards a new fullness of form and breadth of movement that may have been influenced by the Florentine painter Fra Bartolommeo, who was in Venice in 1508. Aspects of the composition were also innovative, and later copied by Venetian painters, in 1511 Agostino Chigi was the richest man in Rome as Papal banker, and a generous patron of the arts
28.
Bernard van Orley
–
Although he never visited Italy, he belongs to the group of Italianizing Flemish painters called the Romanists, who were influenced by Italian Renaissance painting, in his case especially by Raphael. He was born and died in Brussels, and was the court artist of the Habsburg rulers and this too may well have been learned from Raphael, whose workshop in Rome was unprecedentedly large. Accordingly, his surviving works vary considerably in quality. There are many drawings, mostly studies for designs for tapestries and he or his workshop would have produced full-scale cartoons for the tapestries, but these were normally lost in the course of weaving, when they were cut into strips. His paintings are either religious subjects or portraits, these mostly of Habsburgs repeated in several versions by the workshop. But his tapestries were more varied, reflecting the range of that medium, from biblical cycles to allegories, battle. His father had been a designer in Brussels, and several of Bernards descendents were artists. His family came originally from Luxembourg, descendants from the Seigneurs dOurle or dOrley and his branch of the family then moved to the Duchy of Brabant, where his father Valentin van Orley was born as an illegitimate child and lost his noble lineage. Bernard and his brother Everard were both born in Brussels, the painted wing panels of the sculpted Saluzzo retable are attributed to Valentin van Orley, describing the Life of St. Joseph. The retable itself is Gothic in style, but these wing panels already show some characteristic of the Renaissance style, the panels of the Life of St. Roch in the Saint James Church, Antwerp have been ascribed to Everard van Orley. In 1512 Bernard van Orley married Agnes Seghers, in 1539, shortly after Agnes death and his four boys followed in the footsteps of their father and also became painters. It is sometimes presumed that Bernard van Orley completed his art education in Rome in the school of Raphael, at that time, there were only a few painters with some renown in Brussels, such as Van Laethem and painters from the Coninxloo family. They were made to be woven into tapestries for Pope Leo X by Pieter van Aalst, one of his earliest signed works dates from 1512, the Triptych of the Carpenters and Masons Corporation of Brussels, also called the Apostle Altar. The central panel is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and it recounts the lives of two apostles Thomas and Matthew. It was originally commissioned for a chapel in the Our Blessed Lady of Zavel Church in Brussels, in 1515 he was asked to take over the commission of a triptych for the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross in a chapel in the Sint-Walburga church in Veurne. He finished and delivered it in 1522, the left panel is on display in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. The front shows Saint Helena meeting the pope in a setting of Renaissance buildings. The back is a painting of Christ falling under the Cross
29.
Francesco Albani
–
Francesco Albani or Albano was an Italian Baroque painter who was active in Bologna, Rome, Bologna, Viterbo, Bologna, Rome, Bologna, Mantova, Roma and Florence. He was born in Bologna in 1578, the son of a merchant who intended him to go into his own trade. By the age of twelve, however, Albani had become an apprentice to the competent mannerist painter Denis Calvaert and he soon followed Reni to the so-called Academy run by Annibale, Agostino, and Ludovico Carracci. In 1600, Albani moved to Rome to work on the decoration of the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese. At this time, Rome, under Clement VIII Aldobrandini was exhibiting some degree of administrative stability, Albani became one of Annibales most prominent apprentices. Using Annibales designs and assisted by Lanfranco and Sisto Badalocchio, Albani completed frescoes for the San Diego Chapel in San Giacomo degli Spagnoli between 1602 and 1607, in 1606-7, Albani completed the frescoes in the Palazzo Mattei di Giove in Rome. He later completed two other frescoes in the palace, also on the theme of Life of Joseph. In 1609, he completed the ceiling of a hall with Fall of Phaeton. This work was commissioned by Vincenzo Giustiniani, also famous as a patron of Caravaggio, during 1612-14, Albani completed the Choir frescoes at the church of Santa Maria della Pace which had just been remodelled by Pietro da Cortona. In 1616 he painted ceiling frescoes of Apollo and the Seasons at Palazzo Verospi in Via del Corso for the cardinal Fabrizio Verospi, Albanis best frescoes are those on mythological subjects. Among the best of his subjects are a St Sebastian. He was among the Italian painters to devote himself to painting cabinet pictures and his mythological subjects include The Sleeping Venus, Diana in the Bath, Danaë Reclining, Galatea on the Sea, and Europa on the Bull. A rare etching, the Death of Dido, is attributed to him, carlo Cignani, Andrea Sacchi, Francesco Mola, and Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi were among his students. Following the death of his wife he returned to Bologna, where he married a second time, while Albanis thematic would have appealed to Poussin, he lacked the Frenchmans muscular drama. His style sometimes seems to have more in common with the decorative Rococothan with the painting of his own time.5 x 224, petersburg Madonna with Child in Glory with Sts. Penguin Books, Pelican History of Art and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Albani, Francesco. Media related to Francesco Albani at Wikimedia Commons Francesco Albani in the History of Art} Francesco Albani Paitings Gallery
30.
Hans Rottenhammer
–
Johann Rottenhammer, or Hans Rottenhammer, was a German painter. He specialized in highly finished paintings on a small scale and he was born in Munich, where he studied until 1588 under Hans Donauer the Elder. In 1593-4 he was in Rome, and he settled in Venice from 1595-6 to 1606, before returning to Germany and settling in Augsburg. He died in Augsburg, apparently in poverty, and according to some sources an alcoholic. In Venice he gained a reputation for highly finished cabinet paintings on copper, of religious and mythological subjects. In particular he combines the tradition of the North with the compositional and figure styles of Tintoretto. He was the first German artist to specialize in cabinet paintings and he also collaborated with Jan Brueghel the Elder in a similar way. He was commissioned in 1600 to paint a Feast of the Gods for Emperor Rudolph II, a good example of his early style, in which he approaches Tintoretto, is his Death of Adonis in the Louvre. He is believed to have employed Adam Elsheimer as an assistant in 1598 or 1599, and no doubt gave Elsheimer an introduction to Bril, two drawings by Rottenhammer belonged to Elsheimer, and have an inscription noting they were a gift from Rottenhammer. Elsheimers mature paintings are all small and on copper, and continue to develop Rottenhammers synthesis of German and Italian styles, and use of landscape. Among his noted works are painted for Emperor Rudolph II of Austria, Nativity, Battle Between Centaurs and Lapithæ. There are paintings in the galleries in London, Munich, Augsburg, Berlin, Cambridge, St Petersberg, Amsterdam, Schwerin, Milan, Los Angeles, Dunedin. Most of his altarpieces and decorative schemes can still be seen in situ, Hans Rottenhammer on Artcyclopedia Klessmann, Rüdiger. Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland, In association with Paul Holberton Publishing, the National Gallery complete illustrated catalogue
31.
Venus and Cupid with a Satyr
–
Venus and Cupid with a Satyr is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Antonio Allegri da Correggio. It is housed in the Musée du Louvre, Paris and this painting was in the 16th century in the private collection of count Nicholas Maffei. It depicts Venus sleeping with her son Eros, behind them, a satyr is caught while discovering the goddess. The picture was identified as portraying Jupiter and Antiope as, according to the legend. The painting was probably connected to the Education of Cupid, now in the National Gallery of London and it, or a copy of it, can be seen in the 1628 painting of the gallery of Cornelis van der Geest, by Willem van Haecht
32.
Antonio da Correggio
–
In his use of dynamic composition, illusionistic perspective and dramatic foreshortening, Correggio prefigured the Rococo art of the 18th century. He is considered a master of chiaroscuro, antonio Allegri was born in Correggio, Italy, a small town near Reggio Emilia. His date of birth is uncertain, otherwise little is known about Correggios early life or training. It is, however, often assumed that he had his first artistic education from his fathers brother, after a trip to Mantua in 1506, he returned to Correggio, where he stayed until 1510. To this period is assigned the Adoration of the Child with St. Elizabeth and John, by 1516, Correggio was in Parma, where he spent most of the remainder of his career. Here, he befriended Michelangelo Anselmi, a prominent Mannerist painter, in 1519 he married Girolama Francesca di Braghetis, also of Correggio, who died in 1529. One of his sons, Pomponio Allegri, became an undistinguished painter, from this period are the Madonna and Child with the Young Saint John, Christ Leaving His Mother and the lost Madonna of Albinea. Correggios first major commission was the decoration of the private dining salon of the mother-superior of the convent of St Paul called the Camera di San Paolo at Parma. Here he painted an arbor pierced by oculi opening to glimpses of playful cherubs, below the oculi are lunettes with images of feigned monochromic marble. The fireplace is frescoed with an image of Diana, the iconography of the scheme is complex, combining images of classical marbles with whimsical colorful bambini. While it recalls the secular frescoes of the palace of the Villa Farnesina in Rome. He then painted the illusionistic Vision of St. John on Patmos for the dome of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista. Three years later he decorated the dome of the Cathedral of Parma with a startling Assumption of the Virgin, the recession and movement implied by the figures presage the dynamism that would characterize Baroque painting. Other masterpieces include The Lamentation and The Martyrdom of Four Saints, the Lamentation is haunted by a lambence rarely seen in Italian painting prior to this time. The Martyrdom is also remarkable for resembling later Baroque compositions such as Berninis Truth and Ercole Ferratas Death of Saint Agnes, aside from his religious output, Correggio conceived a now-famous set of paintings depicting the Loves of Jupiter as described in Ovids Metamorphoses. The voluptuous series was commissioned by Federico II Gonzaga of Mantua, however, they were given to the visiting Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and thus left Italy within years of their completion. Danaë, now in Romes Borghese Gallery, depicts the maiden as she is impregnated by a curtain of gilded divine rain. Her lower torso semi-obscured by sheets, Danae appears more demure and gleeful than Titians 1545 version of the same topic, the picture once called Antiope and the Satyr is now correctly identified as Venus and Cupid with a Satyr
33.
Otto van Veen
–
He is known for running a large studio in Antwerp, producing several emblem books, and for being, from 1594 or 1595 until 1598, Peter Paul Rubenss teacher. His role as a classically educated humanist artist, reflected in the Latin name by which he is known, Octavius Vaenius, was influential on the young Rubens. Van Veen was born in Leiden around 1556, where his father had been Burgomaster and he probably was a pupil of Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg until October 1572, when the Catholic family moved to Antwerp, and then to Liège. He studied for a time under Dominicus Lampsonius and Jean Ramey and he stayed there for about five years, perhaps studying with Federico Zuccari. Carel van Mander relates that van Veen then worked at the courts of Rudolf II in Prague and William V of Bavaria in Munich, before returning to the Low Countries. In Brussels, he was painter to the governor of the Southern Netherlands, Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma until 1592. After becoming a master in the Guild of St. Luke in 1593, van Veen took numerous commissions for decorations, including altarpieces for the Antwerp cathedral. He also organized his studio and workshop, which included Rubens, the artist later served as dean in two prominent organizations in the city, the Guild of St. Luke in 1602, and the Romanists in 1606. In the seventeenth century, van Veen often worked for the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, later paintings include a series of twelve paintings depicting the battles of the Romans and the Batavians, based on engravings he had already published of the subject, for the Dutch States General. He had two brothers who were painters, Gijsbert van Veen was an engraver and Pieter was an amateur. His daughter Gertruid was also a painter, increasingly, van Veen was active in producing Emblem books, including Quinti Horatii Flacci emblemata, Amorum emblemata, and Amoris divini emblemata. In all these works, van Veens skills as an artist, the Amorum emblemata, for example, pictures 124 putti, or little cupids, enacting the mottoes and quotations from lyricists, philosophers, and ancient writers on the powers of Love. Some of these emblems are as relevant today as they would have to a seventeenth-century audience, a few examples of these mottoes read, A Wished Warre, The woundes that lovers give are willingly receaved. He goes on to quote Cicero and Seneca on this theme, another example familiar to us today as the story of The Tortoise and the Hare, is titled Perseverance winneth, The hare and the tortes layd a wager of their speed. Shows us a cupid and tortoise outpacing the hare and exemplifying the idea that the love which is steady, Emblem Project Utrecht -3 editions of emblem books by Otto van Veen Amorum Emblemata on Internet Archive. Vita D. Thomae Aquinatis a manuscript by Otto van Veen Otto van Veen on Artcyclopedia Belkin, Kristin Lohse, bertini, Giuseppe, Otto van Veen, Cosimo Masi and the Art Market in Antwerp at the End of the Sixteenth Century. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Otto van Veens Batavians defeating the Roman Van de Velde, Carl, Veen, entry at the Netherlands Institute for Art History Veen, Otto van. Emblemes of Love, with verses in Latin, English, media related to Otto van Veen at Wikimedia Commons
34.
Sebastiaen Vrancx
–
Sebastiaen Vrancx, Sebastiaan Vrancx or Sebastian Vranckx was a Flemish Baroque painter and draughtsman who is mainly known for his battle scenes, a genre that he pioneered in Netherlandish painting. He also created landscapes with mythological and allegorical scenes, scenes with robbers, village scenes and he was a gifted figure painter who was regularly invited to paint the staffage in compositions of fellow painters. Sebastiaen Vrancx was baptized on 22 January 1573 in the St James Church in Antwerp and his father Jan was a merchant. He was an apprentice in the workshop of Adam van Noort and it is believed that after finishing his apprenticeship, the artist visited Italy as he only became a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1600. He commenced his career in Antwerp and gained the recognition of his fellow artists and he was particularly esteemed as a painter of battle scenes and Peter Paul Rubens is known to have owned a battle scene by the artist. In 1610 he was invited to join the elite Confrerie of Romanists, a condition of admission was that the member had travelled to Rome. The diversity and high positions held by the Confreries membership offered him an opportunity to meet with potential patrons. He was elected the dean of the chamber of the Guild in 1611. The position entitled Vrancx to carry a sword and it was in a vigorous pose with a sword on his side that he was portrayed by Anthony van Dyck. Vrancx was a member of the chamber of rhetoric the Violieren and he was very active in the chamber of rhetoric and when he served as its factor he wrote about 13 comedies and a number of poems. Vrancx collaborated with Jan Brueghel the Younger, Hendrick van Balen, Vrancx met with personal tragedy when his wife and sole child Barbara died a few months from each other in 1639. He himself died on 19 May 1647 in Antwerp, the pupils of Vrancx included Peter Snayers who became a leading battle painter and Balthasar Courtois, whose work is virtually unknown. There is no view of the size of Vrancx studio. In a letter of 1634, Jan Brueghel the Younger wrote to his business partner in Seville that, Vrancx has plenty to do but refuses to employ studio assistants and he does not allow copies to be put into circulation. Sebastiaen Vrancx is now known for his battle scenes, a genre he likely pioneered in Northern European art. His subject matter was, however, much wider than solely battle scenes and he is also known for a series of drawings depicting scenes from Virgils Aeneid. He also produced designs for the Antwerp printmakers and publishers, Sebastiaen Vrancx was probably the first artist in the Northern or Southern Netherlands who created depictions of battle scenes. His experience as an officer and captain of the Antwerp civil militia may have played a role in his interest in developing this genre, approximately half of his known works are devoted to military scenes
35.
Hendrick van Balen
–
Hendrick van Balen or Hendrick van Balen I was a Flemish Baroque painter and stained glass designer. Hendrick van Balen specialised in cabinet pictures often painted on a copper support. His favourite themes were mythological and allegorical scenes and, to a lesser extent, the artist played an important role in the renewal of Flemish painting in the early 17th century and was one of the teachers of Anthony van Dyck. Hendrick van Balen was born in Antwerp, the date of his birth is not known but was likely 1573 as the birth records of the St George Church of Antwerp for that year are missing. His parents were the merchant Willem van Balen and Machteld van Alten and his family was well-off and thus able to let Hendrick have a good training which included the study of a number of languages. Van Balen was a pupil of Adam van Noort and possibly also of Maerten de Vos and he became a member of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1592-1593 at the age of 17. In 1608-1609 he was the dean of the Guild and in 1609-1610 he was the first dean. From about 1595 to 1602 he studied art while traveling in Italy, although there is no record of his Italian journey, on his return to Antwerp, he became a member of the Guild of Romanists. It was a condition of membership that the member had visited Rome, in the year 1613 the Guild chose him as its dean. In 1605 Hendrick van Balen married Margriet Briers in Antwerp, the couple had 11 children and three of their sons became painters, Jan van Balen, Gaspard van Balen and Hendrick van Balen the Younger. His daughter Maria married the painter Theodoor van Thulden, in 1613 he accompanied Rubens and Jan on a diplomatic mission to the Dutch Republic. Here they met Hendrick Goltzius and other Haarlem artists, van Balen led for over 30 years a successful workshop and had many pupils. He was the teacher of his son Jan van Balen as well as of leading Flemish painters Anthony van Dyck and he was a contemporary of some of the best-known Flemish artists, such as Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder. Hendrick van Balen specialised in cabinet pictures often painted on a copper support. His favourite themes were mythological and allegorical scenes and, to a lesser extent and he also created a number of stained glass designs. While he had a preference for the smaller scale in his later career. These show the influence of his teacher Adam van Noort and his later altarpieces, with their rich and subtle palette, appear to have been painted after van Dycks arrival in his studio. Hendrick van Balens mythological and biblical scenes were painted on small plates or copper plates
36.
Vincenzo Campi
–
Vincenzo Campi was a 16th-century Italian painter working in Cremona during the Late Renaissance. Campi is best known as one of the first northern Italian artists to work in the Flemish style of realist genre painting, Campi was born into a family of prominent artists. He was the son of Italian Renaissance painter Galeazzo Campi, Vincenzo was commissioned to fresco the spandrels of the Cremona Cathedral left unfinished by painter Il Pordenone some fifty years previously. Although it is not what he is best known for, Vincenzo, pordenone’s influence can be clearly seen in Vincenzo’s 1575 altarpiece, Christ Before the Crucifixion that shows the artist’s developing Lombard naturalism. The crucifixion is depicted with Christ standing awkwardly over the cross while his arm is pulled to the ground by the hand of the executioner poised between his legs. The peculiar pose was appropriated from a drawing by Il Pordenone depicting the Passion of Christ. Campi is best known for his significant contribution to the birth of northern Italian genre painting, cheese was also seen to be suitable nourishment for the lower classes, do not have the means to provide themselves with other more healthy foods’. Campi illustrates the low standing of cheese in his work, The Ricotta Eaters, despite Campi’s choice to depict the lower working classes, his treatment of these subjects was neither sympathetic nor romanticised. With the heavy use of metaphors and established character tropes, Campi often depicts his subjects as crude, dim-witted. Art historians often describe these 1580s works as a precursor to Caravaggio’s more progressive realism emerging in the following decade, notizie Del Professore Del Disegno De Cinnabar. 2nd ed. Florence, Francesco Saverio Baldinucci and Ferdinancln Ranalli, friedlaender, Walter F and Donald Posner. Mannerism And Anti-Mannerism In Italian Painting, foods And The Body In Italian Genre Paintings, About 1580, Campi, Passarotti, Carracci. Comedy, Science, And The Reform Of Description In Lombard Painting Of The Late Renaissance, Arcimboldo, Vincenzo Campi, trattato Della Natura De Cibi Et Del Bere. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Pitture Ridicole, Some Late Cinquecento Comic Genre Painting. ”Painters of reality, the legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Campi Chilvers, Ian. In The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists
37.
Guido Reni
–
Guido Reni was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style. Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni, as a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after, he was joined in studio by Albani. He may also have trained with a painter by the name of Ferrantini, when Reni was about twenty years old, the three Calvaert pupils migrated to the rising rival studio, named Accademia degli Incamminati, led by Lodovico Carracci. They went on to form the nucleus of a prolific and successful school of Bolognese painters who followed Lodovicos cousin Annibale Carracci to Rome, like many other Bolognese painters, Renis painting was thematic and eclectic in style. By late 1601, Reni and Albani had moved to Rome to work with the led by Annibale Carracci in fresco decoration of the Farnese Palace. During 1601–1604, his patron was Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati. By 1604–1605, he received an independent commission for an altarpiece of the Crucifixion of St. Peter, after a few year sojourn in Bologna, he returned to Rome to become one of the premier painters during the papacy of Paul V. From 1607–1614, he was one of the painters patronized by the Borghese family, Renis frescoed ceiling of the large central hall of garden palace, Casino dellAurora located in the grounds of the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, is considered his masterpiece. The casino was originally a pavilion commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the massive fresco is framed in quadri riportati and depicts Apollo in his Chariot preceded by Dawn bringing light to the world. The work is restrained in classicism, copying poses from Roman sarcophagi, there is little concession to perspective, and the vibrantly colored style is antithetical to the tenebrism of Caravaggios followers. Payments showed that he was paid in 247 scudi and 54 baiocchi upon completion on 24 September 1616, the two families were in rather bad relations, and the reason for such friction was their constant quest for temporal power. Also the Popes brother, Antonio Barberini, was a cardinal, in those days, the main church of the Capuchins in Rome was St. Nicholas, rather small and dating back to the Middle Ages. The Archangel Michael trampling Satan, wears a late Roman military cloak,1636, held in Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, Rome. According to a legend, Reni became aware that Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj had slandered him, so, Reni, sensing an opportunity, decided to avenge himself by means of his own talent, at the same time pleasing his client, who belonged to the opposing family. According to existing portraits of him, Cardinal Pamphilj had a face, with thin hair, a scanty beard and a somewhat strange look in his eyes. Therefore, the face that Archangel Michael crushes under his foot looks almost identical to that of Giovanni Battista Pamphilj and this turned out even more embarrassing a few years later, when in 1644 the cardinal was elected Pope Innocent X. According to rumor, the chapel of Montecavallo was assigned to Reni to paint
38.
Domenichino
–
Domenico Zampieri, known as Domenichino for his shortness, was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese or Carracci School of painters. Domenichino was born in Bologna, son of a shoemaker, and he left Bologna for Rome in 1602 and became one of the most talented apprentices to emerge from Annibale Carraccis supervision. As a young artist in Rome he lived with his slightly older Bolognese colleagues Albani and Guido Reni, and worked alongside Lanfranco, meanwhile, he had completed frescoes c. Following Annibale Carraccis death in 1609, Annibales Bolognese pupils, foremost Domenichino, Albani, Reni and Lanfranco, became the leading painters in Rome. One of Domenichinos masterpieces, his frescoes of Scenes of the Life of Saint Cecilia in the Polet Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi, was commissioned in 1612 and completed in 1615. Concurrently he painted his first, and most celebrated, altarpiece and it subsequently would be judged as being comparable to Raphaels great Transfiguration and even as the best picture in the world. With the election of a Bolognese pope in 1621, Domenichino returned to Rome, appointed Papal Architect, he nonetheless continued to be most active as a painter, obtaining many commissions for altarpieces in Roman churches. His Scenes from the Life of San Gennaro occupied him for the rest of his life and he painted four large lunettes, four pendentives, and twelve scenes in the soffits of the arches, all in fresco, plus three large altarpieces in oil on copper. He died, perhaps by poison at the hands of the jealous Cabal of Naples, before completing the fourth altarpiece or the cupola, at the time of his death, Domenichinos chief assistant was an obscure painter from Assisi, Francesco Raspantino, who inherited his masters studio. Earlier, Domenichinos principal pupils were Alessandro Fortuna, Giovanni Battista Ruggieri, Antonio Alberti called Barbalonga, Francesco Cozza, Andrea Camassei, others who studied in his studio include Poussin, Pietro Testa, and his future biographer, Giovanni Pietro Bellori. The portrait of Agucchi in York used to be attributed to Domenichino, Imitation in this sense is not copying but a creative process inspired by rhetorical theory whereby revered models are not only emulated but surpassed. Jerome from an altarpiece of the subject in Bologna by his former teacher. Like Domenichinos paintings, its sources were in ancient models and aimed at clarity of expression capable of moving its audience, as the Florentine composer Giulio Caccini held and Domenichino surely believed, the aim of the composer/artist was to move the passion of the mind. To achieve that goal, Domenichino paid particular attention to expressive gestures, Domenichinos composite score of 58 nonetheless was surpassed only by Raphael and Rubens, and it equalled that of the Carracci. The Balance reflects Domenichinos high standing in the history of European taste— until John Ruskin in the 1840s wrote his devastating attacks on Bolognese Baroque painting in his Modern Painters, the Carracci and their followers were condemned by Ruskin as being insincere. For Ruskin, there was no entirely sincere nor any great art from the seventeenth century, in 1996 the first major exhibition of his work was held at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. 1620, Royal Collection, Hampton Court Madonna of Loreto with Saints John the Baptist, Paterniano, 1618–19, North Carolina Museum of Art) Rinaldo and Armida, c. 1620–21, Louvre, Paris Martyrdom of St Peter Martyr, c, 1622-23, Louvre, Paris Saint Ignatius de Loyola’s Vision of Christ and God the Father, c
39.
Felice Riccio
–
Felice Riccio was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance period, born and mainly active in Verona. He is also known as il Brusasorci or Brusasorzi or Felice Brusasorci and he was the son of the painter Domenico Riccio. He painted a Deposition for the church of Tombazosana in the town of Ronco allAdige and he painted a canvas for the Sanctuary-Basilica of Santa Maria della Pace in Verona. Among his pupils were Alessandro Turchi, Pasquale Ottini, Santo Creara, commenting on the events of the plague, Bernasconi states that, Death, having deserted such beautiful hopes, spread the remaining youth, which went to neighboring cities to learn their art. Some returning to their homeland after 1630, brought new styles, and gave a new direction to painting in Verona, from which it fell to extreme decadence
40.
Gaius Maecenas
–
Gaius Cilnius Maecenas was an ally, friend and political advisor to Octavian as well as an important patron for the new generation of Augustan poets, including both Horace and Virgil. During the reign of Augustus, Maecenas served as a minister to the Emperor but in spite of his wealth and power he chose not to enter the Senate. His name has become a byword for a wealthy, generous, expressions in Propertius seem to imply that Maecenas had taken some part in the campaigns of Mutina, Philippi and Perugia. Horace makes reference to this in his address to Maecenas at the opening of his first books of Odes with the expression atavis edite regibus. Tacitus refers to him as Cilnius Maecenas, it is possible that Cilnius was his mothers nomen - or that Maecenas was in fact a cognomen. The Gaius Maecenas mentioned in Cicero as a member of the equestrian order in 91 BC may have been his grandfather. The testimony of Horace and Maecenass own literary tastes imply that he had profited from the highest education of his time and his great wealth may have been in part hereditary, but he owed his position and influence to his close connection with the Emperor Augustus. As a close friend and advisor he had acted as deputy for Augustus when he was abroad. It was in 39 BC that Horace was introduced to Maecenas, during the Sicilian war against Sextus Pompeius in 36, Maecenas was sent back to Rome, and was entrusted with supreme administrative control in the city and in Italy. During the latter years of his life he fell out of favour with his master. Maecenas died in 8 BC, leaving the sole heir to his wealth. Opinions were much divided in ancient times as to his personal character and he enjoyed the credit of sharing largely in the establishment of the new order of things, of reconciling parties, and of carrying the new empire safely through many dangers. To his influence especially was attributed the more humane policy of Octavian after his first alliance with Antony, expressions in the Odes of Horace seem to imply that Maecenas was deficient in the robustness of fibre which Romans liked to imagine was characteristic of their city. Maecenas is most famous for his support of poets, hence his name has become the eponym for a patron of arts. He supported Virgil who wrote the Georgics in his honour and it was Virgil, impressed with examples of Horaces poetry, who introduced Horace to Maecenas. Indeed, Horace begins the first poem of his Odes by addressing his new patron, Maecenas gave him full financial support as well as an estate in the Sabine mountains. Propertius and the minor poets Varius Rufus, Plotius Tucca, Valgius Rufus and Domitius Marsus also were his protégés and his patronage was exercised, not from vanity or a mere dilettante love of letters, but with a view to the higher interest of the state. The change in seriousness of purpose between the Eclogues and the Georgics of Virgil was in a measure the result of the direction given by the statesman to the poets genius
41.
Saint Walpurga
–
Saint Walpurga or Walburga, also spelled Valderburg or Guibor, was an English missionary to the Frankish Empire. She was canonized on 1 May ca.870 by Pope Adrian II, walpurgis Night is the name for the eve of her day, which coincides with May Day. Walpurga was born in the county of Devonshire, England, into an aristocratic family. Saint Richard is buried in the Basilica of San Frediano, Lucca, Saint Richard is also known as Richard the Saxon Pilgrim, of Droitwich. St. Richard, when starting with his two sons on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, entrusted Walburga, then 11 years old, Walpurga was educated by the nuns of Wimborne Abbey, Dorset, where she spent 26 years as a member of the community. She then travelled with her brothers, Willibald and Winebald, to Francia to assist Saint Boniface, her mothers brother, because of her rigorous training, she was able to write her brother Winibalds vita and an account in Latin of his travels in Palestine. As a result, she is called the first female author of both England and Germany. Walpurga became a nun in the monastery of Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm, which was founded by her other brother, Willibald. Following his death in 751, she became the abbess, Walpurga died on 25 February 777 or 779 and was buried at Heidenheim, the day carries her name in the Catholic church calendar. In the 870s, Walpurgas remains were transferred to Eichstätt, in Finland, Sweden, and Bavaria, her feast day commemorates the transfer of her relics on 1 May. At Eichstätt, her bones were placed in a niche, which allegedly began to exude a miraculously therapeutic oil. The earliest representation of Walpurga, in the early 11th-century Hitda Codex, made in Cologne, in other depictions the object has been called a palm branch, which is not correct, since Walpurga was not martyred. The grain attribute has been interpreted as an occasion where a Christian saint came to represent the older concept of the Grain Mother. Peasant farmers fashioned her replica in a corn dolly at harvest time, the Church of St. Walburge, a Roman Catholic church in Preston, Lancashire, England, is a church famous for having the tallest spire of any parish church in England. St. Walburgas Abbey is located at Eichstätt, a second Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburga is located in Virginia Dale, Colorado, near the Wyoming border. The abbey is home to approximately 20 contemplative Catholic nuns and also has a retreat center, at 309 ft. the spire of St. Walburges Church in Preston is the tallest of any parish church in England with only the spires of Salisbury and Norwich Cathedrals reaching higher. Central in the first fortified city of Antwerp, from the 11th century, was the dedicated to St. Walburga. Under French occupation in 1798 the church was confiscated and sold, in 1816 the Dutch government confiscated the church building, and in 1817 it was demolished
42.
The Elevation of the Cross (Rubens)
–
The Elevation of the Cross is a triptych painting by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, completed in 1610-1611. Peter Paul Rubens painted The Elevation of the Cross after returning to Flanders from Italy, the work shows the clear influence of Italian Renaissance and Baroque artists such as Caravaggio, Tintoretto and Michelangelo. The central panel illustrates a tension between the multitude of finely muscled men attempting to lift the cross and the unbearable weight of Christ on the cross. Peter Paul Rubens foreshortening is evident in the contortions of the struggling, strapping men, Christ cuts across the central panel in a diagonal, stylistically akin to Caravaggios Entombment where both descent and ascent are in play at a key moment. Motion, space and time are illustrated along with the struggle to upright the cross, Rubens uses dynamic color and chiaroscuro boldly, a style that would become more subtle with time. The painting is located at the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, Belgium and it was commissioned by the church to express their allegiance with Catholicism, after the split of the protestants. Under Napoleons rule, the emperor took the painting, along with Peter Paul Rubens The Descent from the Cross, the paintings were returned to the cathedral in 1815. In Ouidas novel A Dog of Flanders the main characters Nello and it serves as the climax of the story, as they both sneak inside the Antwerp Cathedral on a freezing Christmas Eve to witness the beauty of the painting. The next day they are frozen to death in front of the triptych
43.
Cathedral of Our Lady (Antwerp)
–
The Cathedral of Our Lady is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Antwerp, Belgium. Todays see of the Diocese of Antwerp started in 1352 and, in Gothic style, its architects were Jan and Pieter Appelmans. It contains a number of significant works by the Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, as well as paintings by such as Otto van Veen, Jacob de Backer. The belfry of the cathedral is included in the Belfries of Belgium, where the cathedral now stands, there was a small chapel of Our Lady from the 9th to the 12th century, which acquired the status of parish church in 1124. During the course of the century, it was replaced by a larger Romanesque church. In 1352, construction was begun on a new Our Lady’s church which would become the largest Gothic church in the Netherlands, in the beginning, it was to be provided with two towers of equal height. In 1521, after nearly 170 years, the new church of Our Lady was ready, the south tower reached only as far as the third string course. During the night of 5–6 October 1533, the new church was gutted by fire. The completion of the tower was therefore delayed, which led to its ultimate postponement. Moreover, the church only became cathedral of the bishopric of Antwerp in 1559 but lost this title again from 1801 to 1961, during the Iconoclasm of 20 August 1566, Protestants destroyed a large part of the cathedral interior. Later, when Antwerp came under Protestant administration in 1581, a number of treasures were once again destroyed, removed or sold. The restoration of Roman Catholic authority came in 1585 with the fall of Antwerp, in 1794 the French revolutionaries who conquered the region plundered Our Lady’s Cathedral and inflicted serious damage. Around 1798, the French administration intended to demolish the building but after each blow, in 1816, various important works of art were returned from Paris, including three Rubens masterpieces. And over the course of the 19th century, the church was restored and refurnished. Between 1965 and 1993, a restoration took place. At the beginning of the 15th century, the choir started developing an active musical life, and as a result. Johannes Ockeghem, one of the most important composers of the 15th century, served here as a vicar-singer in 1443, from 1725 to 1731 Willem de Fesch served as Kapelmeester followed from 1731 to 1737 by Joseph-Hector Fiocco. Lesser known, but locally important figures, such as Jacobus Barbireau and Andreas Pevernage, the churchs one finished spire is 123 metres high, the highest church tower in the Benelux
44.
Kunsthistorisches Museum
–
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome, the term Kunsthistorisches Museum applies to both the institution and the main building. It is the largest art museum in the country and it was opened around 1891 at the same time as the Naturhistorisches Museum, by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary. The two museums have similar exteriors and face each other across Maria-Theresien-Platz, both buildings were built between 1871 and 1891 according to plans drawn up by Gottfried Semper and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer. The two Ringstraße museums were commissioned by the Emperor in order to find a shelter for the Habsburgs formidable art collection. The façade was built of sandstone, the building is rectangular in shape, and topped with a dome that is 60 meters high. The inside of the building is decorated with marble, stucco ornamentations, gold-leaf. It was featured in an episode of Museum Secrets on the History Channel and it had been the biggest art theft in Austrian history. Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós Media related to Kunsthistorisches Museum at Wikimedia Commons Official website Spherical panorama of entrance Hofburgs Armory - photo gallery in Flickr
_-_Apelles_painting_Campaspe_-_2.jpg)
_or_workshop_001.jpg)
.jpg)
,_Portrait_of_a_commander,_Christie%27s_Images.jpg)
,_guerriero_romano_e_servo,_1530_ca._01.JPG)
.JPG)
