French , Paris 1668/69-Rome 1737
Related Paintings of Nicolas Vleughels :. | Moroccan Landscape near Tangiers | The Medicine Man | Nude with Apple | Birth of Christ | Weasel with Chaffinch | Related Artists:
Sebastiaen Vrancx (22 January 1573 - 19 May 1647) was a Flemish Baroque painter and etcher of the Antwerp school.
He was an apprentice in the workshop of Adam van Noort, who also trained many illustrious painters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens and Hendrik van Balen. He also visited the workshop of the Antwerp painter Paul Bril in Rome around 1600.
He was esteemed as one of the main painters of battle scenes, and works by Vranckx were in the collection of Peter Paul Rubens. As a collaborator he worked at times with Jan Brueghel the Elder. and together with Rubens, Frans Francken the Younger, van Balen, Frans Snyders and Joos de Momper the Younger on the Allegory of the Senses, two works commissioned on the occasion of the archduke Albert of Austria's visit to Antwerp. His best-known student is Pieter Snayers.
Most of his pictures represent biblical scenes or scenes of war, such as the sack of towns, cavalry combats, genre paintings and allegorical subjects. Though occasionally vigorous in drawing, his paintings are dull and heavy in tone.
He was at the same time a writer of poetry, comedies and tragicomedies for the chamber of rhetoric De Violieren. He was served as dean of the Antwerp painters' Guild of St. Luke, and was a district head and captain of the militia.
His works can be found in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Groeninge Museum in Bruges (both in Belgium) and the Noordbrabants museum in 's-Hertogenbosch and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (the Netherlands). He is also represented with several drawings or paintings at the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, the Harvard University Art Museums, the Louvre, Paris and several other museums.
Ambrosius Benson (c.1495/1500, Ferrara or Milan - 1550, Flanders) was an Italian painter who became a part of the Northern Renaissance.
While many surviving paintings have been attributed, there is very little known of him from records, and he tended not to sign his work. He is believed to be responsible for mainly religious art, but also painted portraits on commission. He sometime painted from classical sources, often setting the figures in modern-dress, or a contemporary domestic setting. In his lifetime he was successful; he had a large workshop, his work was sold internationally and he was especially popular in Spain.
Benson became popular as a source for pastiche with 19th century painters, who are sometimes known as the "followers of Benson". In particular his many variations of the Magdalen and Sibilla Persica, were further copied and became popular with contemporary buyers. Many have retained their relative value and held in the National Gallery, London and command high prices at Sotheby's
Mattia Preti1613-1699 Italian Mattia Preti Gallery
Born in the small town of Taverna in Calabria, Preti was sometimes called Il Cavalier Calabrese (the Knight of Calabria). His early apprenticeship is said to have been with the "Caravaggist" Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, which may account for his life-long interest in the style of Caravaggio.
Probably before 1630, Preti joined his brother Gregorio (also a painter), in Rome, where he became familiar with the techniques of Caravaggio and his school as well as with the work of Guercino, Rubens, Reni, Giovanni Lanfranco. In Rome, he painted fresco cycles in Sant'Andrea della Valle and San Carlo ai Catinari. Between 1644 and 1646, he may have spent time in Venice, but remained based in Rome until 1653, returning later in 1660-61. He painted frescoes for the church of San Biago at Modena (app. 1651-2) and participated in the fresco decoration of the Palazzo Pamphilj in Valmontone (documented 1660-61), where he worked along with Pier Francesco Mola, Gaspar Dughet, Francesco Cozza, Giovanni Battista Tassi (il Cortonese), and Guglielmo Cortese.
Jacob blessing his grandchildren, Ephraim and Manasseh, in the presence Joseph and their mother Asenath. Whitfield Fine Art Gallery, London.During most of 1653-1660, he worked in Naples, where he was influenced by the other major Neapolitan painter of his era, Luca Giordano. One of Preti's masterpieces were a series of large frescoes, ex-votos of the plague (which were painted on seven city gates but have since been lost to the ravages of time), depicting the Virgin or saints delivering people from the plague. Two sketches are in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples. The bozzetto of the Virgin with the baby Jesus looming over the dying and their burial parties envisions a Last Judgement presided over by a woman. Preti's salary for the work was 1500 ducats. Preti also won a commission to supervise the construction, carving, and gilding for the nave and transept of San Pietro a Maiella.
Having been made a Knight of Grace in the Order of St John, he visited the order??s headquarters in Malta in 1659 and spent most of the remainder of his life there. Preti transformed the interior of St. John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta, with a huge series of paintings on the life and martyrdom of St. John the Baptist (1661-1666). In Malta one also can find many paintings of Preti in private collections and in parish churches. His increased reputation led to an expanded circle of patrons, and he received commissions from all over Europe.
Preti was fortunate to enjoy a long career and have a considerable artistic output. His paintings, representative of the exuberant late Baroque style, are held by many great museums, including important collections in Naples, Valletta, and in his hometown of Taverna.