(November 4, 1592 - April 27, 1656), also known as Gerrit van Honthorst and Gherardo della Notte, was a Dutch painter of Utrecht. He was brought up at the school of Abraham Bloemaert, who exchanged the style of the Franckens for that of the pseudo-Italians at the beginning of the 16th century. Margareta Maria de Roodere and Her Parents by Gerrit van Honthorst (1652) Oil on canvas, 140 x 170 cm. Centraal Museum, UtrechtInfected thus early with a mania which came to be very general in the Netherlands, Honthorst went to Italy in 1616, where he copied the naturalism and eccentricities of Michelangelo da Caravaggio. Home again about 1620, after acquiring a considerable practice in Rome, he set up a school at Utrecht which flourished exceedingly. Together with his colleague Hendrick ter Brugghen, he represented the so-called Dutch Caravaggisti. In 1623 he was president of his gild at Utrecht, where he had married his cousin. He soon became so fashionable that Sir Dudley Carleton, then English envoy at The Hague, recommended his works to the earl of Arundel and Lord Dorchester. In 1626 he received a visit from Rubens, whom he painted as the honest man sought for and found by Diogenes.  Related Paintings of Gerard van Honthorst :. | Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange | Young Drinker | Susanna and the Elders | Frederik Hendrik (1584 - 1647), prince of Orange | Willem II (1626-50), prince of Orange, and his wife Maria Stuart |
Related Artists:
MIERIS, Frans van, the Elder
Dutch painter (b. 1635, Leiden, d. 1681, Leiden). was a Dutch genre and portrait painter. The leading member of a Leiden family of painters, his sons Jan (1660-1690) and Willem (1662?C1747) and his grandson Frans van Mieris the Younger (1689?C1763) were also accomplished genre painters. Frans was the son of Jan Bastiaans van Mieris, a goldsmith, carver of rubies and diamond setter at Leiden. His father wished to train him to his own business, but Frans preferred drawing, and took service with Abraham Toorenvliet, a glazier who kept a school of design. In his father's shop he became familiar with the ways and dress of people of distinction. His eye was fascinated in turn by the sheen of jewelry and stained glass; and, though he soon gave up the teaching of Toorenvliet for that of Gerard Dou and Abraham van den Tempel, he acquired a manner which had more of the finish of the exquisites of the Dutch school than of the breadth of the disciples of Rembrandt. It should be borne in mind that he seldom chose panels of which the size exceeded 12 to 15 inches, and whenever his name is attached to a picture above that size we may surely assign it to his son Willem or to some other imitator. Unlike Dou when he first left Rembrandt, or Jan Steen when he started on an independent career, Mieris never ventured to design figures as large as life. Characteristic of his art in its minute proportions is a shiny brightness and metallic polish. The subjects which he treated best are those in which he illustrated the habits or actions of the wealthier classes; but he sometimes succeeded in homely incidents and in portrait, and not unfrequently he ventured on allegory. He repeatedly painted the satin skirt which Ter Borch brought into fashion, and he often rivalled Ter Borch in the faithful rendering of rich and highly-coloured woven tissues. But he remained below Ter Borch and Metsu, because he had not their delicate perception of harmony or their charming mellowness of touch and tint, and he fell behind Gerard Dou, because he was hard and had not his feeling for effect by concentrated light and shade. In the form of his composition, which sometimes represents the framework of a window enlivened with greenery, and adorned with bas-reliefs within which figures are seen to the waist, his model is certainly Dou. It is a question whether Houbraken has truly recorded this master's birthday. One of his best-known pieces, a party of ladies and gentlemen at an oyster luncheon, in the Hermitage at St Petersburg, bears the date of 1650. Celebrated alike for composition and finish, it would prove that Mieris had reached his prime at the age of fifteen. Another beautiful example, the "Doctor Feeling a Lady's Pulse" in the gallery of Vienna, is dated 1656; and Waagen, in one of his critical essays, justly observes that it is a remarkable production for a youth of twenty-one. In 1657 Mieris was married at Leiden in the presence of Jan Potheuck, a painter, and this is the earliest written record of his existence on which we can implicitly rely. Of the numerous panels by Mieris, twenty-nine at least are dated--the latest being an allegory, long in the Ruhl collection at Cologne, illustrating what he considered the kindred vices of drinking, smoking and dicing, in the year 1680. Mieris had numerous and distinguished patrons. He received valuable commissions from Archduke Leopold, the elector-palatine, and Cosimo III de' Medici, grand-duke of Tuscany. His practice was large and lucrative, but never engendered in him either carelessness or neglect. If there be a difference between the painter's earlier and later work, it is that the former was clearer and more delicate in flesh, whilst the latter was often darker and more livid in the shadows. When he died his clients naturally went over to his son Willem, who in turn bequeathed his painting-room to his son Frans. But neither Willem nor Frans the younger equalled Frans the elder.
Luca Cambiaso
Luca Cambiasi (surname also written Cambiaso or Cangiagio; 1527 - 1585) was an Italian painter and draftsman, familiarly known as Lucchetto da Genova.
Ernst Fries
(22 June 1801 Heidelberg - 11 October 1833 Karlsruhe) was a German painter. Fries was a pupil of Karl Kuntz at Karlsruhe, and afterwards studied in Munich and in Italy. Examples of his work are: eA View of Tivoli, Sorrento and the House of Tasso, The Waterfall of Liris at Isola di Sora, The Castle of Massa, and A View of Heidelberg.