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Abel Grimmer (family name variations: 'Grimer' and 'Grimmaert') (c. 1570–c. 1620) was a Flemish late Renaissance painter, mainly of landscapes and, to a lesser extent, of architectural paintings. His works were important in the development towards more naturalism in Flemish landscape painting.
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Life
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Grimmer was born and died in Antwerp. He learned to paint from his father, the landscape painter Jacob Grimmer. His father Jacob Grimmer had established a name for himself by imitating the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder on small panel pictures and selling these on the market at low prices.
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Abel Grimmer married Catharina Lescornet on 29 September 1591 and became a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1592. He took over his father's workshop. He worked his whole career in Antwerp. The date of his death is not known exactly and is placed after 1620.
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Work
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He often signed and dated his panels. His earliest dated work dates from 1586 and his latest dated work reads "162", so it is dated 1620 or later. He is principally known for his paintings in small format of country scenes, sometimes with a biblical theme. The works were at times in the form of roundels (i.e. in a round format). Many of his paintings were dedicated to the Four Seasons or the Months of the Year. The paintings were sometimes inspired by or even copied from prints by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hans Bol. Abel's work generally shows a strong influence of Bruegel and Bol as well as of his own father's work. His series of the Twelve Months (dated 1592; held in the Chapelle Notre-Dame in Montfaucon-en-Velay) is an exact copy of Adriaen Collaert's prints made after paintings by Hans Bol and published by Hans van Luyck in 1585. The paintings Spring and Summer (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp) are almost exact copies of two prints by Pieter van der Heyden after designs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
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Abel Grimmer's work is characterised by the simplification and systemisation of figures and landscapes. His landscapes show splendid colour harmonies and a certain linearity, through their slightly schematized compositions and their tendency to represent buildings as geometric shapes. His work has been dismissed because of this simplification and its reliance on the work of others. However, it is this combination that enabled him to survive in the Antwerp marketplace. He managed to be so prolific because he had streamlined his technique. Each pictorial area of his landscapes was composed in a single color with little or no modulation. He applied minimal varnishing, which eliminated the effects of roundness and reflection. This stylization and codification of established landscape formulas allowed him to make these works almost as inexpensive and widely available as prints. Jacob Grimmer was one of the first Netherlandish artists to break with the tradition of the mountain landscape pioneered by Joachim Patinir, the founder of the so-called world landscape. Abel Grimmer rather depicted broad landscapes of the Flemish countryside characterised by naturalism and a close observation of nature.
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A favourite theme of Abel Grimmer was the Tower of Babel of which he produced several versions, clearly inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder's treatment of the same subject. The subject is taken from the Book of Genesis 11:1-9. This narrates the story of the decision to build a city and a tower reaching into the heavens. The biblical character Nimrod was appointed to oversee the project's construction. This story was a rich source of subject matter for various late 16th and early 17th century Flemish painters. Their representations were inspired by the two works of 1563 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder on this subject matter (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam). The story of the Tower of Babel is in essence a reflection on human impiety and hubris, a moral message already implicit in both Bruegel's paintings. The architecture of the Tower of Babel in Grimmer's paintings of the subject echoes that of the Colosseum, which in the 16th-century symbolised the decay of imperial Rome. Grimmer's treatment of this subject can also be interpreted as a comment on the turbulent times in which he was living. His home country - the Spanish Netherlands - was at the time he created the paintings engaged in a struggle with the breakaway Protestant provinces in the north. The story of the Tower of Babel also tells about a world in which people speaking one language are suddenly riven with the incomprehension of many different languages. This paralleled the 16th century, when the once united Netherlands became divided between a Catholic south and a Protestant north which vigorously debated the interpretation of the bible and the role of the church. Abel Grimmer collaborated with several different figure painters who provided the staffage in his Babel paintings.
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Abel Grimmer also produced architectural paintings including church interiors such as the Interior of a Gothic Church with a Franciscan Monk Preaching (sold at Sotheby's in London on 9 March 1983). His interest in perspective and the use of a golden light anticipate the work of the Dutch painter of church interiors Pieter Saenredam. His paintings of interior views, such as A Ball (Wrotham Park, Hertfordshire) and Jesus in the House of Martha and Mary (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) show Abel's interest in portraying interior space. Both works are clearly inspired by Hans Vredeman de Vries who also painted a Jesus in the House of Martha and Mary (Royal Collection). He relied on other artists such as Frans Francken the Younger to paint the staffage in his architectural paintings. He would occasionally paint church interiors without staffage. An example is the Church interior (Galen Galerie). This depicts a church interior without any figures and shows the artist's interest in architecture and atmosphere. Earlier scholars suggested that Abel was also an architect on the basis of two autograph architectural drawings depicting respectively an elevation of the gable of Antwerp Cathedral and a church gable with a Gothic spire.
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References
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External links
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Media related to Abel Grimmer at Wikimedia Commons
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Abraham Bloemaert (25 December 1566 – 27 January 1651) was a Dutch painter and printmaker who used etching and engraving. He initially worked in the style of the "Haarlem Mannerists", but by the beginning of the 17th-century altered his style in line with the new Baroque style that was then developing. He mostly painted history subjects and some landscapes. He was an important teacher, who trained most of the Utrecht Caravaggisti.
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Life
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Bloemaert was born in Gorinchem, Habsburg Netherlands, the son of the architect Cornelis Bloemaert I, who moved his family to Utrecht in 1575, where Abraham was first a pupil of Gerrit Splinter (pupil of Frans Floris) and of Joos de Beer. From the age of 15 or 16, he spent three years in Paris (1581–1583), studying for six weeks under a Jehan Bassot (possibly Jean Cousin the Younger) and then under a Maistre Herry. While in the School of Fontainebleau he received further training from his fellow countryman Hieronymus Francken. He returned to Utrecht in 1583, just before the French Wars of Religion began, which destroyed much of the work at the Chateau of Fontainebleau.
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When his father was appointed city architect (Stads-bouwmeester) in Amsterdam in 1591 Bloemaert accompanied him there. On his father's death in 1593 he returned to Utrecht, where he set up a workshop and in 1594 became dean ("deken") of the "zadelaarsgilde". (As of 1367 painters were included in the saddlemakers' guild, with no Guild of St. Luke of their own.) However, in 1611, along with the two other leading Utrecht painters, Joachim Wtewael and Paulus Moreelse, he was one of the founders of the Utrecht Guild of Saint Luke (St Lucas-gilde), a new Utrecht painters' guild, and became its deken in 1618. Many of Bloemaert's paintings were commissioned by Utrecht's clandestine Catholic churches. He died in Utrecht.
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According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "[Bloemaert] excelled more as a colourist than as a draughtsman, was extremely productive, and painted and etched historical and allegorical pictures, landscapes, still-life, animal pictures and flower pieces". In the first decade of the 17th-century, Bloemaert began formulating his landscape paintings to include picturesque ruined cottages and other pastoral elements. In these works, religious or mythological figures play a subordinate role. Country life was to remain Bloemaert's favourite subject, which he depicted with increasing naturalism. He drew motifs such as peasant cottages, dovecotes and trees from life and then on his return to the studio worked them up into complex imaginary scenes.
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Among his many pupils were his four sons, Hendrick, Frederick, Cornelis, and Adriaan (all of whom achieved considerable reputations as painters or engravers). The Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) also lists as his pupils: Jan Aerntsz de Hel, Abraham Jacobsz van Almeloveen, Cornelius de Beer, Nicolaes van Bercheyck, Jan van Bijlert, the two Boths, the two Honthorsts, Leonaert Bramer, Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Hendrick ter Brugghen, Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp, Willem van Drielenburg, Wybrand de Geest, Nicolaus Knüpfer, Hendrik Munnicks, Frederick Pithan, Cornelis van Poelenburch, Henrik Schook, Anthoni Ambrosius Schouten, Robert Jansz Splinter, Matthias Stom, Herman van Swanevelt, Dirck Voorst, Quintijnus de Waerdt, Jan Baptist Weenix, and Peter Petersz van Zanen.
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Public collections
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Bloemaert is represented in numerous art collections including: the Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery, The Hague; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen; Musée du Louvre, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy; Museum of Grenoble; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Royal Academy of Arts, London; University of Rochester, New York; Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina; Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Netherlands; Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, Netherlands; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Courtauld Institute of Art, London; Harvard University Art Museums, Massachusetts; Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Germany; and the Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey.
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Gallery
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Abraham Bloemaert
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Rediscoveries
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Lot and his daughters (120 x 220 cm), oil on canvas (rediscovered in 2006 by Prof. Alain Béjard & Dimitri Joannidès, Alicem institute, Luxemburg)
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External links
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Media related to Abraham Bloemaert at Wikimedia Commons
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Exhibition The Bloemaert Effect in Utrecht, Centraal Museum, 2011-12
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Works and literature on Abraham Bloemaert
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Not two, but three scenes from the Historiae Aethiopicae by Abraham Bloemaert
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Abraham Bloemaert on Artcyclopedia
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Vermeer and The Delft School, an exhibition catalogue from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which includes material on Abraham Bloemaert
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Dutch and Flemish paintings from the Hermitage, an exhibition catalogue from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Bloemaert (cat. no. 2)
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== References ==
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Abraham Govaerts (1589 – 9 September 1626) was a Flemish painter who specialized in small cabinet-sized forest landscapes in the manner of Jan Brueghel the Elder and Gillis van Coninxloo. He was a regular collaborator with other artists who were specialists in specific genres. Govaerts would paint the landscape while these specialists painted the figures, animals or still life elements.
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Life
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He was born in Antwerp where his father was an art dealer. There is no information on his training. In view of the influence on his early oeuvre of Jan Brueghel the Elder, some believe he may have apprenticed in the latter's workshop but there is no evidence for this. He became a master in Antwerp's Guild of Saint Luke in 1607–1608.
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He married Isabella Gielis, with whom he had two daughters named Isabella and Suzanna. He was active throughout his career in Antwerp. He became deacon of the local Guild of Saint Luke in 1623.
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He trained several artists including Alexander Keirincx, Nicolaes Aertsens and Gysbrecht van der Berch.
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He was one of the many people who died during an epidemic in Antwerp. He died on 9 September 1626 and his wife followed him in death a few days later on 13 September 1626. After his premature death, his unfinished works were completed by a number of artists including Alexander Keirincx, Jasper van der Lanen, Jasper Adriaenssens, Nicolaes Aertsens, Antoon Bellieur, Peter Meulevelt and Jan Viers.
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Work
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Govaerts was a landscape specialist, and was known for his wooded landscapes which included a diminutive history, mythological or biblical subject or a hunting scene. His landscapes initially followed the Mannerist style of the three-colour world landscape in which the figures are bracketed by repoussoir trees. His palette at the time exaggerated the brown foreground and the blue tones in the foliage. An example is the composition Diana and Actaeon (Pushkin Museum, Moscow).
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Another major influence was the landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo. A painting entitled Landscape with River Vale and Falcon Hunt (Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp) is inspired by the work of Joos de Momper.
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From 1620 onwards the Mannerist aspect of his palette was replaced by pure and brilliant colours applied in light stippling. He juxtaposed various colours to achieve gradual shading and gentle transitions. This style was more reminiscent of the work of Jan Breughel the Elder. He strived for a dynamic effect in his work by placing dramatic and contorted tree trunks in the foreground and using stark light–dark effects.
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As was common at the time, Govaerts often collaborated with other artists who were specialists in specific genres. Govaerts would take care of the landscape while these specialists painted the figures, animals or still life elements. He collaborated often with members of the Francken family such as Frans Francken the Younger and Ambrosius Francken I. Other collaborators included Sebastiaen Vrancx and Hendrick van Balen. An example of such a collaboration is the composition An elegant couple strolling through the forest where Govaerts had the assistance of Sebastiaen Vrancx who painted the figures and dog in the landscape. A landscape composition painted in collaboration with Frans Francken the Younger (Château de Compiègne) showing an open view of a river is uncharacteristic for his oeuvre.
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References
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External links
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Media related to Abraham Govaerts at Wikimedia Commons
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Abraham Willaerts (c. 1603 - 18 October 1669) was a Dutch Baroque painter, mostly of marine and harbor scenes. He also painted a number of single and family portraits.
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Life
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Abraham Willaerts was born in Utrecht, the son of the painter Adam Willaerts. He trained with his father, a marine painter. He later studied with the Utrecht Caravaggist Jan van Bijlert in Utrecht. He became a member of the Utrecht Guild of Saint Luke in 1624. He travelled to Paris in 1628 where he worked in the workshop of the prominent religious and history painter Simon Vouet. He returned to his home country in 1635.
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On 1637 or 1638 Willaerts sailed to Brazil serving in the entourage of Count John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen, the governor of the Dutch possessions in Brazil. In 1641 the Count sent him with the Dutch fleet from Brazil to Angola (where the Dutch had just taken São Paulo de Loanda and the island of Tomé) on a mission to observe the customs and manners of the indigenous people. Among the paintings he produced were portraits of King Garcia II of Kongo, and Njinga Mbande, the famous queen of Ndongo and Matamba then allied with the Dutch against the Portuguese. Willaerts was also probably responsible for the content, if not the execution of the illustrations of Central Africa that appear in Olfert Dapper's geographical book Description of Africa (1668 book).
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He had returned to the Netherlands in 1644, where he stayed with the prominent architect and painter Jacob van Campen at his castle Randenbroeck near Amersfoort.
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In 1659–60 he visited Rome. Here he joined the Bentvueghels, an association of mainly Dutch and Flemish artists working in Rome. It was customary for the Bentvueghels to adopt an appealing nickname, the so-called 'bent name'. Abraham Willaerts was reportedly given the bent name 'Indian'. This nickname was likely given him because of his travels among the Brazilian tribes. He probably travelled further south to Naples, where he may have found inspiration for his imaginary views of Mediterranean ports.
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He died in Utrecht. His brother Isaac was also a marine painter.
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Work
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Although mainly a marine painter, Willaerts also painted portraits.
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His marine paintings closely follow those of his father as is seen in his Ships near a rocky shore (1647, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem). He preferred compositions with an atmospheric softness. In addition to Dutch harbour and coastal scenes, he also painted Mediterranean harbour views (real and imaginary), such as the Harbour of Naples (National Maritime Museum, London). Despite Willaerts' six-year stay in Brazil and in Angola his compositions never treated specifically Brazilian or African subjects.
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Willaerts painted a series of portraits, both of single figures (several were admirals) and family groups. He also added portraits in the foreground of some of his father's harbour scenes.
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Willaerts also collaborated with the still life painter Willem Ormea on a Fish still life with stormy sea which combines a seascape with a still life of fish in the foreground.
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Notes
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External links
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Media related to Abraham Willaerts at Wikimedia Commons
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Adriaen Isenbrandt or Adriaen Ysenbrandt (between 1480 and 1490 – July 1551) was a painter in Bruges, in the final years of Early Netherlandish painting, and the first of the Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting of the Northern Renaissance. Documentary evidence suggests he was a significant and successful artist of his period, even though no specific works by his hand are clearly documented. Art historians have conjectured that he operated a large workshop specializing in religious subjects and devotional paintings, which were executed in a conservative style in the tradition of the Early Netherlandish painting of the previous century. By his time, the new booming economy of Antwerp had made this the centre of painting in the Low Countries, but the previous centre of Bruges retained considerable prestige.
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He was believed by Georges Hulin de Loo to be the same person as the anonymous Master of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin or Pseudo-Mostaert. Other art historians doubt that any works can be reliably attributed to him, and the number of paintings attributed to him by major museums has been in decline for many decades.
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Personal life
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There are only a few documentary records of his life, and some mentions in literature from the artist's lifetime or soon after. Even so, there are no documents which link him as the creator of any surviving works. It is possible that he was born in Haarlem or Antwerp around 1490. It is not known where or with which painter he served his apprenticeship.
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He is named for the first time in 1510, when he came to Bruges and bought his burghership. In November of the same year he became master in the local painters' Guild of St. Luke and the goldsmiths' guild of St. Elooi. He was later elected nine times as a "deacon" (in Old Dutch : vinder) and twice as the governor (in Old Dutch : gouverneur = treasurer) of the guild.
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He quickly established an important workshop, probably in the Korte Vlaminckstraat in Bruges. This was close to the workshop of Gerard David, at the Vlamijncbrugghe and the former workshop of Hans Memling. Bruges, at that time, was one of the richest towns in Europe. Rich traders and merchants ordered diptychs and portraits for personal use. Isenbrandt painted mainly for private clients. However, there were some paintings that were created without any particular commission. He had enough work to even put out work to other painters in Bruges, as a legal suit from 1534 by Isenbrandt against Jan van Eyck (not the famous one) for non-delivery of paintings he had ordered, demonstrates. He was also appointed the agent in Bruges of the painter Adriaan Provoost (son of Jan Provoost), who had moved to Antwerp in 1530. Contemporary sources therefore mention Isenbrandt as a famous and well-to-do painter.
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He married twice, the first time with Maria Grandeel, daughter of the painter Peter Grandeel. They had one child. After her death in 1537, he married again with Clementine de Haerne with whom he was married by 1543. This second marriage resulted in two daughters and a son. He also had an extramarital daughter with the innkeeper Katelijne van Brandenburch (who was at the same the mistress of the painter Ambrosius Benson).
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When he died, at Bruges, in 1551, he was buried alongside his first wife at the cemetery of the St. Jacob church there; his children inherited no less than four houses with surrounding property.
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Professional life
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Along with Albert Cornelis (before 1513–1531) and Ambrosius Benson (before 1518–1550), a painter from Lombardy, he worked in the workshop of Bruges' leading painter Gerard David, while he was already a master at that time. Isenbrandt is mentioned in the book De Gandavensibus et Brugensibus eruditionis laude claris libri duo by the priest Antonius Sanderus, published in Amsterdam in 1624. This writer refers to texts of the Florentine Lodovico Guicciardini, the Schilderboeck of Karel van Mander and the (lost) notes of the Ghent jurist Dionysius Hardwijn (or Harduinus, 1530–1604). The latter, who had spent several years in Bruges about 1550, mentions Isenbrandt as a disciple of the old Gerard David, who excelled "in nudes and in portraits". He may have travelled to Genoa in 1511 together with Joachim Patinir and Gerard David. The influence of Gerard David shows clearly in the composition and the landscape background of the works attributed to Isenbrandt.
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In his critical exhibition catalogue of Early Flemish Masters in Bruges in 1902, the Ghent great connoisseur of early Flemish Art and art historian Georges Hulin de Loo, came to the conclusion that Isenbrandt was actually the anonymous Master of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin and the author of a large body of paintings previously attributed to Gerard David and Jan Mostaert by the German art historian Gustav Friedrich Waagen. He is therefore sometimes called the Pseudo-Mostaert. Even if this attribution to Isenbrandt cannot be proven without doubt, it is now generally accepted by some art historians, although many others regard Isenbrandt as a convenient label for a body of work by many different artists.
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No surviving painting can be firmly documented as by Isenbrandt. A document stating that he sent some paintings from Antwerp to Spain shows that worked for export as well as the local market, and suggests his international reputation. Two paintings usually associated with him are dated, both in 1518 :
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Portrait of Paulus de Nigro (Groeninge Museum, Bruges) (1518)
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The Bröhmse triptych with the Adoration by the Magi. This was his most monumental work, but it was destroyed in 1942 when the Marienkirche in Lübeck was bombed. For Max J. Friedländer, this was the key work to be used in establishing his style.
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