Leiden 1613-1675 was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly-polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe l'oeil "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes with strong chiaroscuro. His first instructor in drawing and design was Bartholomew Dolendo, an engraver; and he afterwards learned the art of glass-painting under Peter Kouwhoorn. At the age of 15 he became a pupil of Rembrandt, with whom he continued for three years. From the great master of the Dutch school he acquired his skill in coloring, and in the more subtle effects of chiaroscuro; and the style of Rembrandt is reflected in several of his earlier pictures, notably in a portrait of himself at the age of 22, in the Bridge-water House gallery, and in the "Blind Tobit going to meet his Son", at Wardour Castle. At a comparatively early point in his career, however, he had formed a manner of his own distinct from, and indeed in some respects antagonistic to, that of his master. Gifted with unusual clearness of vision and precision of manipulation, he cultivated a minute and elaborate style of treatment; and probably few painters ever spent more time and pains on all the details of their pictures down to the most trivial. He is said to have spent five days in painting a hand; and his work was so fine that he found it necessary to manufacture his own brushes. Notwithstanding the minuteness of his touch, however, the general effect was harmonious and free from stiffness, and his color was always admirably fresh and transparent. He was fond of representing subjects in lantern or candle light, the effects of which he reproduced with a fidelity and skill which no other master has equaled. He frequently painted by the aid of a concave mirror, and to obtain exactness looked at his subject through a frame crossed with squares of silk thread. His practice as a portrait painter, which was at first considerable, gradually declined, sitters being unwilling to give him the time that he deemed necessary. His pictures were always small in size, and represented chiefly subjects in still life. Upwards of 200 are attributed to him, and specimens are to be found in most of the great public collections of Europe. His chef-d'oeuvre is generally considered to be The dropsical woman, 1663, and The Dutch Housewife, 1650, both in the Louvre. The Evening School, in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, is the best example of the candlelight scenes in which he excelled. In the National Gallery, London, favorable specimens are to be seen in the Poulterer's Shop,   Related Paintings of Gerard Dou :. | Portrait of an old woman reading | The Dropsical Woman (mk05) | Reading the Bible | self-portrait with a Palette | The Grocer's Shop |
Related Artists:
Rudolf Wacker
Austria (1893 -1939 ) - Painter painted Selbstbildnis mit orangefarbener Palette in 1926
Eyre Crowe
Sir Eyre Alexander Barby Wichart Crowe GCB GCMG (30 July 1864 - 28 April 1925) was a British diplomat. Crowe was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1907, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1911, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1917, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in the 1920 New Year Honours,[1] and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in the 1923 Birthday Honours. Eyre Crowe was born in Leipzig and educated at Desseldorf and Berlin and in France, with a German mother and a German wife. His father Joseph Archer Crowe had been a British consul-general and ended his career as commercial attache for all of Europe (1882-1896). His grandfather Eyre Evans Crowe was a journalist, writer and historian, and his uncle, Eyre Crowe, was an artist. Crowe first visited England in 1882 when he was seventeen to cram for the Foreign Office examination and at the time was not fully fluent in English.[2] Even later in life it was reported that when angry he spoke English with a German accent. He married his widowed German cousin Clema Gerhardt in 1903. Crowe's wife's uncle was Henning von Holzendorff, who was to become the Chief of the German Naval Staff in the First World War. Due to being half-German, Crowe was often attacked in the press and by Christabel Pankhurst and William le Queux for this during the First World War.
PARENZANO, Bernardino
Italian painter, Paduan school (b. ca. 1450, Parenzo, d. ca. 1500, Vicenza).