Flemish Painter, 1684-1745 was a French subject and portrait painter. He was born in Aix-en-Provence, and was instructed in art by his father Louis-Abraham van Loo, son of Jacob van Loo. Having at an early age executed several pictures for the decoration of the church and public buildings at Aix, he was employed on similar work at Toulon, which he was obliged to leave during the siege of 1707. He was patronized by the prince of Carignan, who sent him to Rome, where he studied under Benedetto Luti. Here he was much employed on church pictures, and in particular executed a greatly praised Scourging of Christ for St Maria in Monticelli. At Turin he painted Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy and several members of his court. Then, moving to Paris, where he was elected a member of the Acad??mie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, he executed various altar-pieces and restored the works of Francesco Primaticcio at Fontainebleau. In 1737 he went to England, where he attracted attention by his portrait of Colley Cibber and of Owen McSwiny, the theatrical manager; the latter, like many other of van Loo's works, was engraved in mezzotint by John Faber Junior. He also painted Sir Robert Walpole, whose portrait by van Loo in his robes as chancellor of the exchequer is in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and the prince and princess of Wales. He did not, however, practise long in England, for his health failing he retired to Paris in 1742, and afterwards to Aix, where he died on 19 December 1745.   Related Paintings of Jean Baptiste van Loo :. | Princess Augusta of Saxe Gotha | Portrait of Louis XV of France | Portrait of Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain | Portrait of Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux | Portrait of Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux |
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Christoph Franz Hillner
painted Holy night in 1767
Salomon Gessner
Swiss Painter, 1730-1788,a bookseller's son, was apprenticed to the bookseller Spener in Berlin. Giving up this employment, he lived for a time by painting and engraving, for which he had a considerable talent. In 1750 he settled in Zurich, continuing to live by painting, including painting on porcelain. He began to write idylls in poetic prose, beginning with Daphnis (1754). His Idyllen (1756) achieved a nation-wide success. In Der Tod Abels (1758) he attempted an epic in prose, which was followed by two plays (Schaferspiele), two stories, including Der erste Schiffer, and a few more idylls, Neue Idyllen (1772). In his idylls, Geßner, who is indebted to Theocritus and Virgil, creates an idealized, orderly, almost horticultural state of nature, from which everything rough and craggy has been eliminated; his shepherds are similarly untouched by the ruder aspects of country life. His work embodies the city-dweller's longing for a nature which he does not know, and this explains its instant popularity. W. Raabe uses Gebner's Idyllen, the publication of which coincided with the outbreak of the Seven Years War
John Edward Brett
1830-1902 English