Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1577-1640 Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 ?C May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp which produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically-educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, king of Spain, and Charles I, king of England. Rubens was a prolific artist. His commissioned works were mostly religious subjects, "history" paintings, which included mythological subjects, and hunt scenes. He painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house. He also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the Joyous Entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not detailed; he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. He was one of the last major artists to make consistent use of wooden panels as a support medium, even for very large works, but he used canvas as well, especially when the work needed to be sent a long distance. For altarpieces he sometimes painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. His fondness of painting full-figured women gave rise to the terms 'Rubensian' or 'Rubenesque' for plus-sized women. The term 'Rubensiaans' is also commonly used in Dutch to denote such women.  Related Paintings of Peter Paul Rubens :. | The Coronation of Marie de' Medici | Austausch der Prinzessinnen | Wild-Boar Hunt | The Fur | four great rivers of Antiquity |
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Ambrosius Benson
(c.1495/1500, Ferrara or Milan - 1550, Flanders) was an Italian painter who became a part of the Northern Renaissance. While many surviving paintings have been attributed, there is very little known of him from records, and he tended not to sign his work. He is believed to be responsible for mainly religious art, but also painted portraits on commission. He sometime painted from classical sources, often setting the figures in modern-dress, or a contemporary domestic setting. In his lifetime he was successful; he had a large workshop, his work was sold internationally and he was especially popular in Spain. Benson became popular as a source for pastiche with 19th century painters, who are sometimes known as the "followers of Benson". In particular his many variations of the Magdalen and Sibilla Persica, were further copied and became popular with contemporary buyers. Many have retained their relative value and held in the National Gallery, London and command high prices at Sotheby's
KEIRINCKX, Alexander
Flemish painter (b. 1600, Antwerpen, d. 1652, Amsterdam). Flemish painter. He was the son of Matthijs Keirinckx and Anna Masson. In 1619 he became a master in Antwerp's Guild of St Luke, he married Clara Matthausen on 18 June 1622, and in 1624 he took on Artus Verhoeven as an apprentice. From 1636 onwards he is regularly recorded in Amsterdam, where he was registered as a citizen in the year of his death. He visited Great Britain, possibly in 1625 (Walpole mentions two signed and dated drawings of London views from this year) and definitely in 1640-41, when he undertook commissions from King Charles I to paint views of royal castles and palaces.
William Ludwell Sheppard
American, 1833-1912