Dutch Baroque Era Painter, ca.1625-1679
Daily life was Jan Steen's main pictorial theme. Many of the genre scenes he portrayed are lively to the point of chaos and lustfulness, even so much that a Jan Steen household, meaning a messy scene, became a Dutch proverb (een huishouden van Jan Steen). Subtle hints in his paintings seem to suggest that Steen meant to warn the viewer rather than invite him to copy this behaviour. Many of Steen's paintings bear references to old Dutch proverbs or literature. He often used members of his family as models. Jan Steen painted also quite a few self-portraits, in which he showed no tendency of vanity.
Steen did not shy from other themes: he painted historical, mythological and religious scenes, portraits, still lifes and natural scenes. His portraits of children are famous. He is also well known for his mastery of light and attention to detail, most notably in textiles. Steen was prolific, producing about 800 paintings, of which roughly 350 survive.
Steen's work was valued much by contemporaries and as a result he was reasonably well paid for his work. He did not have any students, but his work proved a source of inspiration for many painters. Related Paintings of Jan Steen :. | The Effects of Intemperance | The Tric-trac players | upp-och nedvanda varlden | Erysichthon selling his daughter Mestra | Grace Before Meat | Related Artists:
Nikolaus Knupfer(1609 - 1655) was a Dutch Golden Age painter.
Knepfer was trained in Leipzig, where according to Houbraken he was apprenticed to Emanuel Nysen. He then moved to Magdeburg where he found work making brushes for artists. He stayed there until 1630, and then moved to Utrecht to work with Abraham Bloemaert. He lived with him for two years and then established his own studio in Utrecht, where in 1637 he became a visiting member of the Guild of St. Luke. He worked on the decorations of the castle Kronborg in Denemarken, and painted figures in the landscapes of Jan Both and Jan Baptist Weenix. Knepfer was a successful teacher, whose students were great painters after him, such as Jan Steen, Gabriel Metsu, Ary de Vois, and Pieter Crijnse Volmarijn.
Edward Matthew WardBritish Painter.
1816-1879
His parents encouraged his early interest in art. He was sent to a number of art schools, including that of John Cawse (1779-1862), before gaining entry to the Royal Academy Schools in 1835. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1834 with Adelphi Smith as Don Quixote (untraced). In 1836 he went abroad for further study, visiting Paris and Venice on the way to Rome, where he spent three years. His first work of any consequence was Cimabue and Giotto (untraced), which he sent back to the Royal Academy show of 1839. On the way back to England at the end of that year Ward visited Munich to learn the technique of modern fresco painting in order to take part in the competition to decorate the Palace of Westminster, but his cartoon, Boadicea (1843; untraced), was unsuccessful. However, in 1852 he was commissioned to produce eight pictures for the Palace of Westminster, on subjects drawn from the English Civil War, the best of which is the Last Sleep of Argyll (1860s) in the Commons Corridor of the Houses of Parliament
Edith Corbet (28 December 1846 Goulburn, New South Wales - 1920 Hampstead), was a Victorian landscape painter, having close associations with the Macchiaioli group (also known as the Tuscans or Etruscans), who, in a break with tradition, painted outdoors in order to capture natural light effects and favoured a panoramic format for their paintings.
Edith was born in Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia, the second daughter and fifth child of Henry Edenborough and Margaret Stedman. The Edenborough family came from Leicestershire, but relocated to London, where they became prosperous merchants in hosiery and silk. Henry Edenborough was a sea captain and made several voyages to Australia between 1833 and 1837, deciding to settle there in 1840. He acquired a farm south of Goulburn known as 'Wollogorang' and built "a handsome two-storey brick and stone rubble building notable for its interesting French windows and its impressive outbuildings". This was the family home until 1854 when Henry and Margaret sold the property to John William Chisholm, and returned to England with their family of six children. Henry died in 1855 at Chesham Lodge in Surrey, aged 43. In 1861 the British census records show Edith, 14 years old, living with her widowed mother in Kensington. The 1871 census shows her living with her sister Annie, noted as head of household, at 5 Sheffield Gardens in Kensington, in which year she was exhibiting her work in London.
She married the painter Arthur Murch and moved to Rome where she painted with Giovanni Costa, leader of the Macchiaioli group. In 1876 they both stayed in Venice. Olivia Rossetti Agresti wrote: "Costa had a very high opinion of this artist's gifts and used to remember with pleasure how on that occasion they used to go out together to paint from nature at Fusino" (Agresti, 1904).
Edith Murch frequently exhibited from 1880 to 1890 at the Grosvenor Gallery and the New Gallery. In 1891 she married Matthew Ridley Corbet, one of the Macchiaioli group's leading members, after which she exhibited mainly at the Royal Academy, visiting Italy and living in London for the remainder of her life.