Leiden 1613-1675 was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly-polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe l'oeil "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes with strong chiaroscuro. His first instructor in drawing and design was Bartholomew Dolendo, an engraver; and he afterwards learned the art of glass-painting under Peter Kouwhoorn. At the age of 15 he became a pupil of Rembrandt, with whom he continued for three years. From the great master of the Dutch school he acquired his skill in coloring, and in the more subtle effects of chiaroscuro; and the style of Rembrandt is reflected in several of his earlier pictures, notably in a portrait of himself at the age of 22, in the Bridge-water House gallery, and in the "Blind Tobit going to meet his Son", at Wardour Castle. At a comparatively early point in his career, however, he had formed a manner of his own distinct from, and indeed in some respects antagonistic to, that of his master. Gifted with unusual clearness of vision and precision of manipulation, he cultivated a minute and elaborate style of treatment; and probably few painters ever spent more time and pains on all the details of their pictures down to the most trivial. He is said to have spent five days in painting a hand; and his work was so fine that he found it necessary to manufacture his own brushes. Notwithstanding the minuteness of his touch, however, the general effect was harmonious and free from stiffness, and his color was always admirably fresh and transparent. He was fond of representing subjects in lantern or candle light, the effects of which he reproduced with a fidelity and skill which no other master has equaled. He frequently painted by the aid of a concave mirror, and to obtain exactness looked at his subject through a frame crossed with squares of silk thread. His practice as a portrait painter, which was at first considerable, gradually declined, sitters being unwilling to give him the time that he deemed necessary. His pictures were always small in size, and represented chiefly subjects in still life. Upwards of 200 are attributed to him, and specimens are to be found in most of the great public collections of Europe. His chef-d'oeuvre is generally considered to be The dropsical woman, 1663, and The Dutch Housewife, 1650, both in the Louvre. The Evening School, in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, is the best example of the candlelight scenes in which he excelled. In the National Gallery, London, favorable specimens are to be seen in the Poulterer's Shop,   Related Paintings of Gerard Dou :. | Old woman at her window,Watering flower | The Dropsical Woman (mk05) | The Dropsical Lady (mk08) | A Poulterer's Shop | Portrait of an old woman reading |
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John glover
English-born Australian Painter, 1767-1849 English painter. He was employed first as a schoolteacher at Appleby (Cumbria) and after 1794 as a drawing-master at Lichfield (Staffs), from where he sent drawings to London each year; on his occasional visits to the capital he received lessons from William Payne and was clearly influenced by him. In the 1790s he also began to practise in oils, some of which were exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1795 onwards. At the first exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours (April-June 1805) Glover's pictures were priced more highly than those of any other exhibitor; he was elected President of the Society in 1807 and again in 1814-15. A typical watercolour is his Landscape with Waterfall (U. Manchester, Whitworth A.G.).
Francesco Fracanzano
Italian , b. Monopoli 1612-d.1656 Naples Naples.Brother of Cesare Francanzano. He moved to Naples in 1622 with Cesare and like him entered Ribera's workshop. In 1632 he married Salvator Rosa's sister Giovanna. His early style remains obscure. Bologna (1958) attributed a group of paintings to him that show half-length figures against a predominantly dark background, painted in deep colours with loaded brushstrokes. These pictures, among them two versions of the Prodigal Son.
Louis Michel Eilshemius
(February 4, 1864 - December 29, 1941) was an American painter, primarily of landscapes and nudes. Although he was academically trained, much of his work has the unself-aware character of naive art. Eilshemius was a grandson of Swiss painter Louis-Leopold Robert. Born near Newark, New Jersey into a wealthy family, his earliest education was in Europe, after which he spent two years at Cornell University before his art studies began at the Art Students League of New York. He subsequently studied under Bouguereau at the Academie Julian in Paris, and traveled widely in Europe, Africa and the South Seas, returning to the family brownstone in New York City where he was to live for the rest of his life.