1858-1928
Dutch Jan Toorop Gallery
He moved to the Netherlands in 1872 and took a course in drawing at the Polytechnische School in Delft (1876-9). He also studied at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (1880-82) and at the Ecole des Arts D?coratifs in Brussels (1882-5). In Amsterdam he joined the St Lukas Society, and in Belgium he was a founder-member of Les XX in 1884. Although he had met Jozef Isra?ls in 1880 and respected the style of the Hague school, he was more attracted by what he saw in Brussels, particularly work by French artists. His portraits of 1884 are painted in an Impressionist style. With other members of Les XX he trained himself in plein-air; he learnt from James Ensor how to apply colours with a palette knife and how to use white with the same intensity as other colours. His style, however, remained austere and his scenes of workmen show a sensitive realism reminiscent of Gustave Courbet's work, for example Respect for the Dead. Related Paintings of Jan Toorop :. | The new generation | Trio Fleuri (nn02) | The Three Brides (mk09) | Three Women with Flowers | Desire and Gratification(The Appeasing) | Related Artists:
Andrea SoldiItalian
C1703-1771
Italian painter. George Vertue, the only source for Soldi's earliest years, described him in 1738 as a Florentine aged 'about thirty-five or rather more' who had been in England 'about two years'. He had previously been in the Middle East, where he painted some British merchants of the Levant Company who had advised him to go to London. Two three-quarter-length portraits called Thomas Sheppard (1733 and 1735-6; ex-art market, London, 1917 and 1924, see Ingamells, 1974) belong to this period. In London Soldi enjoyed considerable success in the period between 1738 and 1744; Vertue reported that he began 'above thirty portraits' between April and August 1738. He was extensively patronized by the 2nd and 3rd Dukes of Manchester (eight portraits, sold Kimbolton Castle, Cambs, 18 July 1949), the 3rd Duke of Beaufort (four portraits at Badminton House, Glos) and the 4th Viscount Fauconberg (eight portraits at Newburgh Priory, N. Yorks). The seated three-quarter-length of Isabella, Duchess of Manchester, as Diana (1738; London, Colnaghi's, 1986) and the informal full-length of Lord Fauconberg (c. 1739; Newburgh Priory, N. Yorks) exemplify his lively handling, strong colour and theatrical, Italianate imagination. In a less extravagant vein, the Duncombe Family (1741; priv. col., see Ingamells, 1974), a conversation piece of some charm, and the Self-portrait (1743; York, C.A.G.) suggest a versatile talent. Soldi's bravura contrasted with contemporary English portrait practice, then wavering between the sober manner of Kneller and a playful Rococo, and his attraction for Italianate Englishmen was obvious. He was rivalled only by Jean-Baptiste van Loo, who was in London between 1737 and 1742; both artists painted the dealer Owen McSwiny and the poet Colley Cibber about 1738. He far outclassed his Italian rivals, the Cavaliere Rusca (1696-1769), who worked in London from 1738 to 1739, and Andrea Casali, who was in London from 1741 to 1766.
Friedrich von AmerlingAustrian Academic Painter, 1803-1887,Austrian painter. He came from a family of craftsmen and studied (1815-24) at the Akademie der bildenden Kenste, Vienna, where one of his teachers was the conservative history painter Hubert Maurer (1738-1818). From 1824 to 1826 he attended the Academy in Prague, where he was taught by Josef Bergler. In 1827 and 1828 Amerling stayed in London, and he met the portrait painter Sir Thomas Lawrence, whose work was to be a strong influence on Amerling's painting during the next two decades. Amerling also travelled to Paris and Rome but was recalled to Vienna on an official commission to paint a life-size portrait of the emperor Francis I of Austria (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.). With this work,
Mura, Francesco deItalian, 1696-1782
Italian painter. He was educated initially in the workshop of Domenico Viola at Naples, but in 1708 he entered the school of Francesco Solimena, whose favourite pupil and most trusted collaborator he became. At first he followed closely Solimena's monumental Baroque manner, as in the frescoes (1715) in S Nicola alla Carit? in Naples, but later developed a more controlled and refined style of rhythmical lines, light and airy colours and delicate psychological overtones. He employed this new style in his ten canvases of the Virtues and his vast Adoration of the Magi (all 1728; Naples, S Maria Donnaromita) and, above all, in his frescoes of the Adoration of the Magi in the apsidal dome of the church of the Nunziatella, Naples (1732; in situ). De Mura was also active as a portrait painter; his Portrait of the Artist's Wife