Austrian Northern Renaissance Painter, 15th Century,was an Austrian painter active at the beginning of the fifteenth century; a tentative lifespan of 1395 to 1430 has been put forth, but this appears highly conjectural. His name is taken from a diptych that once belonged to the Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz, located in southeastern Austria near the present-day border with Hungary. The left panel depicts the Annunciation on the obverse; the reverse is a depiction of the Madonna and Child. The right panel depicts the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine, with Saint Dorothy on its reverse. Details of costume and iconography combine with associations with the International Style to indicate a date of around the first decade of the fifteenth century. It was initially proposed, by Betty Kurth in 1922, that the artist was French and had some association with the court in Paris. Other writers have disagreed, and various nationalities including French, Austrian, German, or Bohemian have been posited for the Master. Some have further suggested that he was an itinerant court artist, trained in France but active in Austria. Various clues have been used in an attempt to describe his nationality. These include his use of finely-worked gold decoration, in which some have seen a link to Franco-Burgundian goldsmith's work of the late fourteenth century. Others, instead, see it as a link to the school of panel painting then active at the court in Prague. Consequently, it seems highly unlikely that the artist's nationality will be conclusively established.   Related Paintings of MASTER of Heiligenkreuz :. | Sacristia | Thalia, Muse of Comedy | European city landscape, street landsacpe, construction, frontstore, building and architecture.065 | Self-Portrait with Monkey and Parrot | Exposition of Moses |
Related Artists:
HELST, Bartholomeus van der
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1613-1670 Dutch painter. He was the son of a Haarlem inn-keeper and presumably undertook part or all of his training in Amsterdam. His earliest works suggest that the painter Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy was his master. Although van der Helst had probably already established himself as an independent master by the time he married Anna du Pire in Amsterdam in 1636, his earliest known work, a portrait of The Regents of the Walloon Orphanage, Amsterdam (Amsterdam, Maison Descartes), dates from 1637. Stylistically it is close to the work of Pickenoy. His portrait of a Protestant Minister of 1638 (Rotterdam, Boymans-van Beuningen) reveals the influence of Rembrandt. The young artist must have risen rapidly to fame in Amsterdam, for as early as 1639 he received the prestigious commission for a large painting for the Kloveniersdoelen (Arquebusiers' or Musketeers' Hall): The Civic Guard Company of Capt. Roelof Bicker and Lt Jan Michielsz. Blaeuw (Amsterdam, Rijksmus.), which formed part of the same series as Rembrandt's 'Night Watch' (Amsterdam, Rijksmus.). Van der Helst may not have completed this commission until 1642 or 1643. The ingenious arrangement of the figures in a broad composition shows the artist's special talent for composing large groups. Pickenoy's influence is less noticeable here than in the portrait of 1637; the self-assured poses of the individual figures were to become a characteristic feature of van der Helst's work. The successful execution of this portrait established van der Helst's reputation: from 1642, when he began to receive an increasing number of commissions for individual portraits, until 1670 he was the leading portrait painter of the ruling class in Amsterdam. From 1642 his technique in portrait painting gradually became more fluent and the rendering of costume materials more detailed. Some typical portraits of his earlier period are those of Andries Bicker (Amsterdam, Rijksmus.), his wife Catharina Gansneb Tengnagel (Dresden, Gem?ldegal. Alte Meister) and their son Gerard Bicker (Amsterdam, Rijksmus.), all of 1642, and the Portrait of a Young Girl (1645; London, N.G.). In 1648 van der Helst painted a second civic guard portrait, The Celebration of the Peace of M?nster at the Crossbowmen's Headquarters, Amsterdam (Amsterdam, Rijksmus.), a superbly composed and well painted portrait that, until the late 19th century, was considered one of the masterpieces of the Golden Age but later lost popularity because of its smooth and modish execution. It can nevertheless still be regarded as one of the most important group portraits of the 17th century.
BEMBO, Bonifazio
Italian Painter, active 1444-1477
Max Joseph Wagenbauer
Maximilian Joseph Wagenbauer (1775 Grafing - 1829 Munich), was a Bavarian artist. After finishing school, Wagenbauer attended drawing classes in Munich, under Johann Jakob Dorner the Elder (1741-1813). At the turn of the 19th century he was producing mostly Neo-Classical watercolour landscapes. He served in the military from 1797 to 1801, receiving a royal artist's annuity after his service through the influence of Johann Christian von Mannlich (1741-1822), architect and general building director of the dukes of Zweibre-ken. A condition of the royal stipend was that he produce paintings. He was appointed artist to the court and cabinet in 1802 and Inspector of the Royal Paintings Gallery in 1815. Wagenbauer focused increasingly on oil painting after 1810 and enjoyed the patronage of Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, who in 1811 commissioned him, Cantius Dillis (1779-1856) and Johann Jakob Dorner the Younger (1775-1852) to decorate the banquet hall at Schloss Nymphenburg with large paintings of Bavarian lakes.