b Pontormo, nr Empoli, 26 May 1494; d Florence, 31 Dec 1556). Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo  Related Paintings of Pontormo, Jacopo :. | The Expulsion from Earthly Paradise | Portrait of a Lady in Red | Christ before Pilate | Deposition | Vertumnus and Pomona |
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Nicolaes Eliaszoon Pickenoy
(10 January 1588 - 1653/1656) was a Dutch painter of Flemish origin. Pickenoy was possibly a pupil of Cornelis van der Voort and presumably Bartholomeus van der Helst was his own pupil. He was the son of the Antwerp monumental mason Elias Claeszoon Pickenoy (1565-1640) and Heijltje Laurens s'Jonge (1562-1638), who emigrated to Amsterdam before Nicolaes Pickenoy was born. In 1621, living near the Oude Kerk, he married Levijntje Bouwens (1599-na 1656), an orphan of 21 years. They had ten children: Sara and Elias died young. Pickenoy painted large Schuttersstukken, group portraits of the regents of the orphanage, and individual portraits of local or national celebrities like Nicolaes Tulp, Cornelis de Graeff, Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp and Jochem Hendrickszoon Swartenhont, Elisabeth Bas's husband. The earliest picture ascribed to the artist is "Dr. Sebastiaen Egbertz de Vrij's Osteological Presentation" of 1619, now in Amsterdam Historisch Museum. His heyday was ca. 1630-1637, a period marked by a high artistic level and numerous commissions from prominent patrons. After 1637 he painted little, save for a number of prestigiouseand lucrativeegroup portraits. Besides portraits, he also painted a small number of biblical subjects, one of which can be seen in the Museum Catharijneconvent. The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and Amsterdams Historisch Museum holds many of his best works, not least the Schutterstukken or militia paintings. In 1637 he bought from Adriaen Pauw the house on the corner of Sint Anthoniessluis and Jodenbreestraat, a fashionable area with many painters, art dealers, jewellers and so on. The house had previously been owned by his supposed master, Cornelis van der Voort, and later by Hendrick van Uylenburgh. During the years 1631-1634 the latter was collaborating with Rembrandt van Rijn, who painted numerous portraits for Van Uylenburgh's art business. Thus the house Pickenoy purchased had been a centre of Amsterdam portraiture for decades. In 1639 Rembrandt returned to the neighbourhood as he bought the house next to Pickenoys, the present day Rembrandthuis. Rembrandt could leave his house via an exit onto the Zwanenburgwal under the house of his neighbor Pickenoy. He brought out Night Watchepainted in his courtyarderolled up through the tunnel. Like Rembrandt, Pickenoy was not able to bring up the loan and so after eight years he sold the house. The work of Pickenoy is difficult to distinguish from that of some of his contemporaries. Typical of Pickenoy are the fiercely invading light that makes the heads stand out sharply, the somewhat exaggerated gestures, the large greenish brown shadows and the odd-shaped eyes.
Anton von Werner
Germany (1843- 1915 ) - Painter
ZEILLER, Jakob Johann
German painter (b. 1708, Reutte, d. 1783, Reutte) Austrian painter. Trained initially by his father, Paul Zeiller (1658-1738), he subsequently studied in Italy (1723-32) with Sebastiano Conca and at the Accademia di S Luca in Rome, and with Francesco Solimena in Naples, then at the Kaiserliche Akademie in Vienna. From 1733 to 1743 he was a regular collaborator on Paul Troger's frescoes, contributing mainly architectural frameworks painted in the style of the Bolognese quadraturisti. He retained such frameworks in his own paintings throughout his life, even in south Germany where this was generally unusual. Troger's influence on the style of Zeiller's figures and on his iconographic repertory was such that his first independent works in Austria