Dutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1625-1679 Daily life was Jan Steen's main pictorial theme. Many of the genre scenes he portrayed are lively to the point of chaos and lustfulness, even so much that a Jan Steen household, meaning a messy scene, became a Dutch proverb (een huishouden van Jan Steen). Subtle hints in his paintings seem to suggest that Steen meant to warn the viewer rather than invite him to copy this behaviour. Many of Steen's paintings bear references to old Dutch proverbs or literature. He often used members of his family as models. Jan Steen painted also quite a few self-portraits, in which he showed no tendency of vanity. Steen did not shy from other themes: he painted historical, mythological and religious scenes, portraits, still lifes and natural scenes. His portraits of children are famous. He is also well known for his mastery of light and attention to detail, most notably in textiles. Steen was prolific, producing about 800 paintings, of which roughly 350 survive. Steen's work was valued much by contemporaries and as a result he was reasonably well paid for his work. He did not have any students, but his work proved a source of inspiration for many painters.  Related Paintings of Jan Steen :. | Scholar at his Desk | A Delf burgher and his daughter | The Indiscreet inn guest | An Interior with a Man Offering an Oyster to a Woman | A Woman at her Toilet (mk25) |
Related Artists:
Owen, William
English, 1769-1825 English painter. The son of a bookseller, he was educated at the grammar school in Ludlow and was sent to London in 1786 to study under Charles Catton the elder (1728-98), coach painter to George III and founder-member of the Royal Academy. Owen's copy of a work by Reynolds, made soon after his arrival, attracted the latter's attention. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1791 and exhibited at the Royal Academy the following year. From then on he exhibited there every year, apart from 1823 and 1825, and was elected ARA in 1804 and RA in 1806. He painted a number of rural scenes but specialized in portrait painting. Although his reputation was eclipsed by that of Thomas Lawrence, he was sought after by many of the eminent figures of the day, producing portraits of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr William Howley (1813), and of the politician and essayist John Wilson Croker (exh. 1812; both London, N.P.G.); other of his sitters were William Pitt the younger and John Soane. In 1810 he was appointed portrait painter to the Prince of Wales (later George IV) and in 1813 principal portrait painter to the Prince when the latter became Prince Regent. The Prince Regent does not seem to have sat to him but nonetheless he offered Owen a knighthood, which the painter refused. From c. 1820 Owen's health deteriorated until a disease of the spine confined him to his room and finally rendered him incapable of painting. He died after accidentally taking a bottle of opium that had been wrongly labelled.
Henri Lehmann
German Neoclassical Painter, 1814-1882,was a French historical and portrait painter, born in Kiel, Schleswig. He was a pupil of his father, Leo Lehmann, and of Ingres in Paris, where he opened a studio in 1847, after having become naturalized. His brother Rudolf Lehmann was a well-known portrait artist.
Janos Donat
1744-1830 Hungarian Janos Donat Location Donat was born in Klosterneuzell in 1744 and learned painting at M. Meytens, V. Fischer and Sambach in Vienna where he lived for some time and later Prague. In Vienna he became interested in painting portraits. After moving to Pest in 1810 he painted some of his most noted classicist portraits such as Ferenc Kazinczy in 1812 and Benedek Virag in 1815. He was also noted for his compositions such as Resting Venus, Orfeus and Euridike, and Proserpina which were paintings of mythological creatures.