1851-1892 Harnett was born in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland during the time of the potato famine. Shortly after his birth his family emigrated to America, settling in Philadelphia. Becoming a United States citizen in 1868, he made a living as a young man by engraving designs on table silver, while also taking night classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later, in New York, at Cooper Union and at the National Academy of Design. His first known oil painting, a still life, dates from 1874. The style of trompe l'oeil painting that Harnett developed was distinctive and inspired many imitators, but it was not without precedent. A number of 17th century Dutch painters, Pieter Claesz. for instance, had specialized in tabletop still life of astonishing verisimilitude. Raphaelle Peale, working in Philadelphia in the early 19th century, pioneered the form in America. What sets Harnett's work apart, besides his enormous skill, is his interest in depicting objects not usually made the subject of a painting. Harnett painted musical instruments, hanging game, and tankards, but also painted the unconventional Golden Horseshoe (1886), a single rusted horseshoe shown nailed to a board. He painted a casual jumble of second-hand books set on top of a crate, Job Lot, Cheap (1878), as well as firearms and even paper currency. His works sold well, but they were more likely to be found hanging in a tavern or a business office than in a museum, as they did not conform to contemporary notions of high art. Harnett spent the years 1880?C1886 in Europe, staying in Munich from 1881 until early 1885. Harnett's best-known paintings, the four versions of After The Hunt, were painted between 1883 and 1885. Each is an imposing composition of hunting equipment and dead game, hanging on a door with ornate hinges at the right and keyhole plate at the left. These paintings, like the horseshoe or currency depictions mentioned earlier, are especially effective as trompe l'oeil because the objects occupy a shallow space, meaning that the illusion is not spoiled by parallax shift if the viewer moves. Overall, Harnett's work is most comparable to that of the slightly younger John F. Peto. The two artists knew each other, and a comparison can be made between two paintings featuring violins. Harnett's Music and Good Luck from 1888 shows the violin hanging upright on a door with ornate hinges and with a slightly torn piece of sheet music behind it. The elements are arranged in a stable, deliberate manner. Peto's 1890 painting shows the violin hanging askew, as well as chipped and worn, with one string broken. The sheet music is dog-eared and torn around the edges, and placed haphazardly behind the instrument. The hinges are less ornate, and one is broken. Harnett's objects show signs of use but are well preserved, while Peto's more humble objects are nearly used up. Crippling rheumatism plagued Harnett in his last years, reducing the number but not the quality of his paintings. He died in New York City in 1892. Other artists who painted similar compositions in Harnett's wake include his contemporary John Haberle and successors such as Otis Kaye and Jefferson David Chalfant.  Related Paintings of William Michael Harnett :. | Music and Literature | Charles II (mk25 | Still Life with Three Castles Tobacco | Job Lot Cheap | Still Life with Pipe and Tobacco |
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Jean-Baptiste Deshays
French Baroque Era Painter, 1729-1765 was a French painter of religious and mythological subjects.His first training was under his father, the minor Rouen painter Jean-Dominique Deshays, he then spent a little time under Jean-Baptiste Descamps at his Ecole Gratuite de Dessin. He spent time in Hyacinthe Collin de Vermont's Paris studio from around 1740 to 1749 and Jean Restout II's from late 1749 to 1751. Both these had been pupils of Jean Jouvenet, and painted in the Grand Style of French history painting, a style Deshays adopted as his own. While he was in Restout's studio, Deshays entered the Prix de Rome competition, winning second prize in 1750 with His 1750 Laban Giving his Daughter in Marriage to Jacob won the second prize in the Grand Prix de Rome, and his 1751 Job on the Dung-hill the first prize. Deshays served the compulsory three years training at the Ecole des Eleves Prot??g??s (where he learnt from Carle van Loo, its director, and attracted some religious commissions, including two vast canvases, a Visitation and an Annunciation, for the monastery of the Visitation at Rouen), before going to Rome.
simon luttichuys
ca 1630-1640
PANTOJA DE LA CRUZ, Juan
Spanish Painter, 1553-1608 Spanish painter. He must have moved to Madrid when he was very young, receiving his training in the workshop of Alonso S?nchez Coello, painter to Philip II. On numerous occasions he declared himself to be a follower of S?nchez Coello, in whose workshop he was an oficial, and he probably collaborated to a considerable degree on many of his master's mature works. There are very few signed works by Pantoja from before the death of S?nchez Coello, although some anonymous paintings from the workshop are probably by him. In Madrid in 1587 Pantoja married a woman of some means, and by the following year, when S?nchez Coello died, he was an independent painter, aspiring to his master's position. Documentation exists from 1590 concerning portraits by Pantoja of members of the royal family including one of Don Felipe, the future Philip III (1593; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.). On Philip's accession to the throne in 1598 Pantoja painted another portrait of him (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.) and became the official portrait painter for the court and for the nobility of Madrid; there is detailed documentation for his work from this time. He painted clothing and jewels with precision, in minute detail and with a dry objectivity in the Flemish tradition. His treatment of faces, however, clearly reveals his study of Venetian portraiture, and in particular that of Titian, as well as sharp psychological penetration. In his portraits of royal children he maintained, albeit with a certain rigidity, the charm that S?nchez Coello in his paintings had given these infant figures tightly swathed in official robes