Flemish Baroque Era Painter, ca.1618-1664 Flemish painter, active in Italy, Syria and India. He arrived in Rome in the mid-1640s, perhaps in circumstances similar to those depicted in his painting The Landing (Paris, Louvre). In 1646 he was registered as living in the Via Margutta in the parish of S Maria del Popolo, where documents indicate that he continued to reside until 1651, together with other Flemish Catholics like himself. In 1647 he attended a meeting of the Accademia di S Luca, not as an academician but simply as an associate. The following year he was visited by the Dutch poet Matthijs van de Merwede (1625-?1677), who later recalled the extremely poor welcome he received from the artist. On 1 June 1651 Sweerts was employed by the Antwerp merchant Jan Deutz to represent him at the Papal Customs to collect seven pieces of woollen cloth from Leiden. Sweerts's relationship with the Deutz family was always close: he painted portraits of Jeronimus Deutz (Amsterdam, Rijksmus.) and Balthasar Deutz and a series of the Seven Acts of Mercy for the family; some scholars have identified this series with the cycle of paintings divided between the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, and two private collections   Related Paintings of SWEERTS, Michiel :. | River Landscape with a Ferry | The Wounded Sea Gull | Hylas and the Nymphs | Ein Cynischer Philosoph | Madame Charles-Louis Trudaine (mk05) |
Related Artists:
Elias Vonck
Dutch , Amsterdam 1605-1652
Jean-Pierre Franque
French, 1774-1860,French painter. He and his twin brother, Joseph-Boniface Franque (1774-1833), who was also a painter, were the sons of a modest farmer and, according to a local story, their youthful talent was such that the provincial government paid for them to study in Grenoble. They enrolled at the Ecole Gratuite in Grenoble and stayed for about two years (1786-8), training to become engravers. During the revolutionary period, the twins' education was taken over by the Departement de la Dreme. In 1792 their case was discussed at the National Assembly in Paris, which placed them in David's atelier and provided a pension for four years. David agreed to educate them but refused payment, writing to the President of the Assembly, 'I am overjoyed to be chosen to be the first teacher of these youths who could be called children of the nation since they owe everything to her.' The two brothers were considered very promising students, and David asked Jean-Pierre to assist him in the execution of the Intervention of the Sabine Women (1796-9; Paris, Louvre). Jean-Pierre also became involved with LES PRIMITIFS and the mysterious Maurice Quae (1779-1804), who reacted against Davidian principles and advocated a return to 'primitive' 15th-century Italian art. Franque demonstrated his independence from David in the selection of the subject for his 1806 Salon debut, the Dream of Love Induced by the Power of Harmony (destr.). In the spring of 1807 he was one of the 26 painters who entered a sketch (untraced) for the competition for a large painting representing Napoleon on the battlefield of Eylau, a competition won by Gros. In 1810 Franque produced Allegory of the Condition of France before the Return from Egypt (Paris, Louvre).
Samuel FB Morse
1791-1872,American painter and inventor. The son of a Calvinist minister, he began amateur sketching while a student at Yale College, New Haven, CT. After graduating in 1810, he returned to Charlestown, MA, to paint family portraits. In Boston in the same year he met Washington Allston, recently returned from Italy, under whose tutelage he executed his first history painting, the Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth (c. 1810-11; Boston, MA, Pub. Lib.). He joined Allston on his trip to London in 1811, enrolled in the Royal Academy Schools and also studied privately with Allston and Benjamin West. Morse Dying Hercules (1812-13; New Haven, CT, Yale U. A.G.), based on the pose and musculature of the Laokoon (Rome, Vatican, Mus. Pio-Clementino) and the theory evident in Allston Dead Man Restored to Life by Touching the Bones of the Prophet Elisha (1811-14; Philadelphia, PA Acad. F.A.), was critically acclaimed when exhibited at the Royal Academy and is indicative of Morse academic interests. After two trips in 1813 and 1814 to Bristol, where he painted a number of portraits and small subject pieces, Morse ended his period in England with another mythological history painting, the Judgement of Jupiter (1814-15; New Haven, CT, Yale U. A.G.).