1728-1779 Dutch Anton Raphael Mengs Gallery Mengs was born in 1728 at Usti nad Labem (German: Aussig) in Bohemia on 12 March 1728; he died in Rome 29 June 1779. His father, Ismael Mengs, a Danish painter, established himself finally at Dresden, whence in 1741 he took his son to Rome. In Rome, his fresco painting of Parnassus at Villa Albani gained him a reputation as a master painter. The appointment of Mengs in 1749 as first painter to Frederick Augustus, elector of Saxony did not prevent his spending much time in Rome, where he had married Margarita Quazzi who had sat for him as a model in 1748, and abjured the Protestant faith, and where he became in 1754 director of the Vatican school of painting, nor did this hinder him on two occasions from obeying the call of Charles III of Spain to Madrid. There Mengs produced some of his best work, and specially the ceiling of the banqueting-hall of the Royal Palace of Madrid, the subject of which was the Triumph of Trajan and the Temple of Glory. Among his pupils there was Agust??n Esteve. After the completion of this work in 1777, Mengs returned to Rome, and there he died, two years later, in poor circumstances, leaving twenty children, seven of whom were pensioned by the king of Spain. His portraits and autoportraits recall an attention to detail and insight, often lost from the grand manner paintings. Besides numerous paintings in the Madrid gallery, the Ascension and St Joseph at Dresden, Perseus and Andromeda at Saint Petersburg, and the ceiling of the Villa Albani must be mentioned among his chief works. In 1911, Henry George Percy, 7th Duke of Northumberland, possessed a Holy Family, and the colleges of All Souls and Magdalen, at Oxford, possessed altar-pieces by Mengs's hand. In his writings, in Spanish, Italian and German, Mengs has put forth his eclectic theory of art, which treats of perfection as attainable by a well-schemed combination of diverse excellences Greek design, with the expression of Raphael, the chiaroscuro of Correggio, and the colour of Titian. He would have fancied himself the first neoclassicist, while in fact he may be the last flicker of Baroque art. Or in the words of Wittkower, In the last analysis, he is as much an end as a beginning. His intimacy with Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who constantly wrote at his dictation, has enhanced his historical importance, for he formed no scholars, and the critic must now concur in Goethe's judgment of Mengs in Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert; he must deplore that so much learning should have been allied to a total want of initiative and poverty of invention, and embodied with a strained and artificial mannerism. Mengs was famous for his rivalry with the contemporary Italian painter Pompeo Batoni.  Related Paintings of Anton Raphael Mengs :. | Portrait of Infante Antonio Pascual of Spain | Portrait of Archduke Ferdinand (1769-1824) and Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria (1770-1809), children of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor | the later Queen Maria Luisa of Spain | Portrait of Maria Antonia Walpurgis of Bavaria | maria luisa of parmathe princess of asturias |
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Giovanni Martinelli
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1610-1659
Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck
(between 1600 and 1603, Haarlem - buried June 30, 1662, Haarlem) was a gifted Dutch Golden Age portraitist. He was the son of the painter Cornelis Engelsz from Gouda, who taught him to paint portraits. In 1632 he became a member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke and started a successful career as a portraitist of mostly Catholic sitters in Haarlem. He may have been a Frans Hals pupil, and was strongly influenced by him, especially in his natural expressions and relaxed poses. He is best known for his exactness in painting details such as jewelry and lace, which made him quite popular with female sitters. Most notably, he won a lucrative commission in 1642 for a group portrait of the regentesses of the St. Elisabeth Gasthuis, at the time the wealthiest charity institution in Haarlem. This was won at the expense of Frans Hals himself, who had painted the regents of the St. Elisabeth Gasthuis in 1641 and fully expected to win the commission for the women.
Mattheus Verheyden
Born 1700 Back Died 1776 Country Netherlands.