Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1495-1550 South Netherlandish painter of Italian birth. In 1518 he acquired Bruges citizenship, and in 1519 he was admitted to the guild of painters and saddlemakers there as an independent master, with the comment that he was 'from Lombardy'. He may have been from Ferrara, although he was originally called Ambrogio Benzone, taking his first name from the patron saint of Milan, the capital of Lombardy. He was probably attracted to Bruges by its commercial and artistic reputation. Initially he worked in the studio of Gerard David, by whom he was profoundly influenced, but after a few months the relationship went wrong and the younger painter brought a case against David. Benson's first marriage was to Anna Ghyselin, who bore him two sons, Willem Benson (1521/2-1574) and Jan Benson (before 1530-before 1581), both of whom became artists. From his second marriage, to Josyne Michiels, a daughter Anna was born, and he had two other daughters from various extra-marital relationships. Benson was an affluent and successful man: he owned several houses, for one of which he gave eight paintings in half payment (which gives some idea of the value of his works at the time). Benson twice received commissions from city magistrates to decorate their new county hall and was a member of the city council on three occasions; he also held important offices within the painters' guild, including dean (1537-8 and 1543-4) and governor (1540-41). His pupils included his two sons, and Joachim Spaers (1541) and Jacob Vinson (Fynson; 1549).  Related Paintings of BENSON, Ambrosius :. | Mary Magdalene Reading | Mary Magdalene gfg | Mary Magdalene | Virgin with the Pear fdf | Virgin and Child with Saints |
Related Artists:
Thomas Trotter
British 1756-1803
George Hicks
British 1824-1914
Paris Bordone
Italian 1500-1571 Italian painter and draughtsman. He is best known for his strikingly beautiful depictions of women, both in portraits and in cabinet paintings. He also excelled in rendering monumental architectural settings for narrative, both religious and secular, possibly initiating a genre that would find great currency during the mid-16th century, especially in Venice, France and the Netherlands. His favoured media were oil and fresco, the latter being used on both interiors and faades. Although he was not generally sought after by Venetian patrons during his career, as his art was eclipsed by that of Titian, Paolo Veronese and Jacopo Tintoretto, Bordone was regarded in the mid-16th century as an accomplished artist (Pino; Sansovino). He worked for the moneyed lite of northern Italy and Bavaria, for the royalty of France and Poland, and had works commissioned to be sent to Spain and to Flanders. Despite knowledge of the important patrons for whom he worked, the chronology of Bordones oeuvre is by no means clear. Dating on stylistic grounds is confounded by the diverse sources on which he drew, ranging from the Emilian, Lombard and Venetian to the French and northern European, depending on the patron. Due to the ease with which prints circulated during Bordones career, it is difficult to ascertain whether influences were derived at first hand or from printed images. Such difficulties in assigning dates are further exacerbated by his use of the same figure study for numerous paintings evidently executed decades apart. Reliance on the testimony of Vasari, who interviewed Bordone in 1566, in conjunction with the extant documents, the few signed and dated paintings and, to a lesser extent, period fashion provides only a rough outline of his activity. Due to the lack of agreement among scholars regarding chronology, the following account is based mainly on the documentary evidence.