Hendrik Willem Mesdag was born on February 23, 1831 in Groningen. His father, a merchant and banker, was an amateur painter who saw to it that his two sons were also educated in the art of painting. He was a Dutch marine painter. He was born in Groningen, the son of the banker Klaas Mesdag and his wife Johanna Wilhelmina van Giffen. Mesdag was encouraged by his father, an amateur painter, to study art. He married Sina van Houten in 1856, and when they inherited a fortune from her father, Mesdag retired from banking to pursue a career as a painter. He studied in Brussels with Willem Roelofs and in 1868 moved to The Hague to paint the sea. In 1870 he exhibited at the Paris Salon and won the gold medal for The Breakers of the North Sea. Preparations for departureIn 1880 he received a commission from a Belgian company to paint a panorama giving a view over the village of Scheveningen on the North Sea coast near The Hague . Related Paintings of Hendrik Willem Mesdag :. | Pinks in the Surf | Terug van de Vischvangst | Flat-bottomed Fishing Pinks and Fisherfolk at Scheveningen | Calm Sea | In Danger | Related Artists:
V.L.E. SparrePehr Hillestrom Swedish, 1732-1816,was a Swedish artist and since 1794 a professor at the Swedish Royal Academy of Art. He became the director in 1810. He produced numerous paintings of mostly women and children performing various daily tasks inside upper- and middle-class homes in Stockholm. Dresses and furniture were painted exactly the way they looked and provide a valuable source of information about what life was like in those days. In addition to this he painted craftsmen in action at mills and other early industrial workplaces. Between 1757 and 1772 he worked as a master tapestry weaver, after learning the trade in France.
FLEGEL, GeorgGerman painter (b. 1566, Olomouc, d. 1638, Frankfurt am Main).
was a German painter, best known for his still life works. Flegel was born in Olmetz (Olomouc), Moravia. Around 1580 he moved to Vienna, where he became the assistant to Lucas van Valckenborch I, a painter and draughtsman. Flegel and his employer later moved to Frankfurt, which at the time was an important art-dealing city. As an assistant, he inserted items such as fruit, flowers, and table utensils into Valckenborch's works. In a period of about 30 years (c. 1600-1630), he produced 110 watercolor pictures, mostly still life images which often depicted tables set for meals and covered with food, flowers, and the occasional animal.
