b.Jan. 8, 1836, Dronrijp, Netherlands. d.June 25, 1912, Wiesbaden, Germany. Painter and designer of Dutch birth. The son of a notary, Alma-Tadema demonstrated an early artistic ability. In 1852 he entered the Antwerp Academy, where he studied under Gustaf, Baron Wappers, and Nicaise de Keyser. An important influence at this time was Louis De Taye, Professor of Archaeology at the academy and a practising artist. Alma-Tadema lived and worked with De Taye from 1857 to 1859 and was encouraged by him to depict subjects from the early history of France and Belgium. This taste for historical themes increased when Alma-Tadema entered Baron Henri Leys studio in 1859 and began assisting him with his monumental frescoes for the Antwerp Town Hall. While in Leys studio, Alma-Tadema produced several major paintings, for example the Education of the Children of Clovis (1861; ex-Sir John Pender priv. col., see Zimmern, p. 3) and Venantius Fortunatus Reading his Poems to Radagonda (1862; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Mus.), which are characterized by their obscure Merovingian subject-matter, rather sombre colouring and close attention to detail.  Related Paintings of Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence :. | A Sculpture Gallery in Rome at the Time of Augustus (mk23) | A Hearty Welcome (mk24) | Laura Alma-Tadema (mk23) | Welcome Footsteps (mk23) | A Reading from Homer (mk23) |
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Bernardino Mei
(1612/15 - 1676) worked in a Baroque manner in his native Siena and in Rome, finding patronage above all in the Chigi family. Briefly a pupil of the Sienese draughtsman and cartographer Giuliano Periccioli, where he learned the art of engraving, Bernardino passed to the studio of the painter Rutilio Manetti and probably also served in the workshop of Francesco Rustici. He painted in and around Siena, where his work came to the attention of Cardinal Fabio Chigi, who, once elected pope as Alexander VII (1655), called Bernardino Mei to Rome in 1657. There Bernardino came under the influences of Mattia Preti, Andrea Sacchi and Pier Francesco Mola, and of Guercino, to the extent that until the 20th century Bernardino's fresco of Aurora in Palazzo Bianchi Bandinelli was attributed to Guercino himself. Through the fast friendship that bonded him to Gian Lorenzo Bernini, whose studio he frequented, he applied that sculptor's sense of theatrical action to his own mythological and allegorical subjects. He died in Rome in 1676.
Andrea Vanni
Italian Byzantine Style Painter , ca.1332-1414 was an Italian painter of the early Renaissance. He was born in Siena, and in conjunction with Bartolo di Maestro Fredi, began to paint in 1353. He seems to have been important in Siena, having been elected a member of the Great Council in 1370, Gonfaloniero in 1371, sent as Envoy to the Pope at Avignon in 1372, on a mission to Florence in 1373, and again as Envoy to the Pope at Naples in 1384. Many examples exist of his paintings between 1353 and 1414 in Naples and its vicinity. At the chapel of St. Catherine of Siena, in the church of San Domenico, Naples, can be found the remains of a fresco painted by him to commemorate the life of that saint, who was a correspondent and perhaps a relation of his own. A letter from St. Catherine to Vanni survives. About the year 1400,
Samuel Palmer,OWS
1805-1881