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ART “4” “2”-DAY 23 May

DEATHS: 1918 MAUFRA — 1668 WOUWERMAN — 1648 LE NAIN — 1782 ERIKSEN

BIRTHS: 1598 MELLAN — 1683 PESNE — 1813 JACQUE

^ Died on 23 May 1918: Maxime-Émile-Camille-Louis Maufra, French Impressionist landscape and marine painter and printmaker born on 17 May 1861. — {Comment est-il mort? Il a fait maufrage?}
— Maufra began painting at the age of eighteen under the guidance of local painters in Nantes such as the brothers Charles Leduc [1831–] and Alfred Leduc [1850–1913] and the landscape painter Charles Le Roux [1841–1895]. He went to Liverpool to train for a commercial career. While in Great Britain he admired paintings by the Old Masters and by Gainsborough [1727-1788], Constable, and Turner. He returned to France at the end of 1883. From 1884to 1890 he continued in commerce at Nantes, painting in his spare time. He became acquainted with Impressionism and was encouraged by the Nantes painter Le Roux and the sculptor Le Bourg.
He exhibited for the first time in 1886 at Nantes and, with two landscapes, in the Paris Salon with critical approval. He gave up commerce in 1890 and traveled in Brittany, where at Pont-Aven he met Gauguin and Sérusier [1864-1927] in 1890. The work of these artists overshadowed the influence he had undergone from such painters as Pissarro and Sisley. By 1890 Maufra was greatly affected by synthetism, the style invented by Émile Bernard [1868-1941] and developed by Gauguin, that translates forms into flat colored planes arranged in a decorative pattern. This style is most apparent in Maufra's etchings, lithographs, and drawings.
Maufra settled in Paris in 1892 at the Bateau-Lavoir but returned to Brittany each year, in particular to the Quiberon region, where he did much of his painting. But he also painted at various points on the Normandy coast and in and near Paris. In 1894 Le Barc de Boutteville mounted an exhibition of his work which revealed his individual talents to a wider public. Maufra subsequently exhibited with Durand-Ruel, to whom he remained under contract for the rest of his life. Maufra's art was enriched by his travels in the the Highlands of Scotland (1895-1896), Dauphiné (1904), the Midi (1912), Algeria (1913), Savoy (1914), and occasionally in Touraine.

— LINKS
— La Route du Gaud (1893, 20x29cm; 3/5 size _ ZOOM to 6/5 size)
— The Leguenay Bridge, Bruges (1894)
— Near the Mill (1897) — The Port of Sauzon, Belle Isle en Mer (1905)
— Rentrant au Port à Douarnenez (Finistère) (1906) — Saint Jean du Dougt (1906)
— 70 images at Webshots

^ Born on 23 May 1598: Claude Mellan, French draftsman, engraver, and painter, who died on 09 September 1688.
— Born in Abbeville, Claude Mellan moved to Paris at a young age, his first print, produced for a theological thesis presented at the Mathurins College indicating that he was in the capital from 1619 onwards. Anatole de Courde de Montaiglon catalogued 400 engravings by him, and about 100 of his drawings are known. Mellan was also active as a painter; a number of lost paintings are recorded in his own engravings (e.g. Samson and Delilah and Saint John the Baptist in the Desert). Several paintings have been attributed to him since the 1970s, but none has support generally
— 1598: naissance de Claude Mellan à Abbeville (Normandie), dans la famille d'un chaudronnier planeur de cuivre / 1624: départ pour l'Italie, grâce au soutien de Claude-Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637): il est l'élève de Villamena et de Simon Vouet / 1626: mariage de Simon Vouet et de Virginia da Vezzo, dont Mellan fait le portrait. / 1630 environ: Mellan grave des planches pour la Galleria Giustiniana, dirigée par Joachim von Sandrart, qui confie l'exécution des planches à différents graveurs, dont Pieter de Bailliu, Michel Natalis, Corneille Bloemaert et Théodore Matham / 1636: Mellan rentre en France; à Aix-en-Provence, il grave une carte de la Lune sous les instructions de Claude-Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc. / 1642: Mellan est logé au Louvre. / 1688: Il meurt à Paris.

— LINKS
— Self-Portrait (1635, 22x15cm)
— La Face du Christ sur le Suaire (1649, 43x32cm) — Head of Christ (34x27cm)
— The Virgin holding the Child appearing to Saint Bernard who is kneeling (1640, 36x24cm) _ detail
— 50 engravings at FAMSF

^ Died on 23 May 1668: Philips Wouwerman, Dutch Baroque era painter born in 1619, specialized in horses. He studied under Jan Wynants. Wouwerman's students included Adriaen van de Velde.
— The most celebrated member of a family of Dutch painters from Haarlem, where he worked virtually all his life. He became a member of the painters' guild in 1640 and is said by a contemporary source to have been a student of Frans Hals. The only thing he has in common with Hals, however, is his nimble brushwork, for he specialized in landscapes of hilly country with horses - cavalry skirmishes, camps, hunts, travelers halting outside an inn, and so on. In this genre he was immensely prolific and also immensely successful. He had many imitators, including his brother Peter (1623-1682), and his great popularity continued throughout the 18th century. Subsequently he has perhaps been underrated, for although his work generally follows a successful formula, he maintained a high quality; his draughtsmanship is elegant, his composition sure, his coloring delicate, and his touch lively.

— LINKS
— The Gray (1646)
— Two Horses (33x32cm) _ Wouwerman was a specialist in painting horses. Elisabetta Farnese, the wife of King Philip V had a collection of his paintings in La Granja, the royal palace near to Segovia. This painting belonged to her collection.
— Cavalry Battle in front of a Burning Mill (1665, 55x67cm) _ The most successful Dutch painter of horses was prolific Philips Wouverman of Haarlem. He rarely painted large pictures: his speciality was small-scale landscapes and genre scenes which included horses - battles, skirmishes, encampments, scenes at a smithy or in front of an inn, and hunts.
— Riding School (68x83cm) _ Wouwerman was a Dutch painter of landscapes with battle and hunting scenes and genre scenes of soldiers in camp reminiscent of Pieter van Laer. He frequently disposed dozens of small figures in his canvases and he had a special fondness for white horses. There are about 1200 recorded paintings by him, only very few dated. His brothers Jan and Pieter were also landscape painters, Pieter imitated Philips and used a confusingly similar PW monogram. The picture shown here depicts a scene of horse training with a mountainous landscape in the background. A company of horse trainers are seen in a woodland glade in the mountains breaking in horses. In this composition the figures of the riders, grooms and children, all clothed in bright color, are no more important than the horses. The trees, billowing cumulus clouds and rather misty landscape suggest a more southerly setting than the place where this picture was in fact painted. The prancing movements of the saddled horses make this an exceptionally animated composition.
— Rocky Landscape with resting Travelers (45x61cm) _ The most successful Dutch painter of horses was prolific Philips Wouverman of Haarlem. He rarely painted large pictures: his speciality was small-scale landscapes and genre scenes which included horses - battles, skirmishes, encampments, scenes at a smithy or in front of an inn, and hunts.
— Stag Hunt in a River (1655, 130x190cm) _ This painting represents a prerogative of aristocrats; even they were permitted to hunt deer only one day per year. The Italianate, rose colored landscape seems a leisure ground, a never-never land rather than a productive hunting field, even if the run-down cottage hints at the transience of such pleasures.
— The White Horse (1645)

^ Born on 23 May 1683: Antoine Pesne, French painter active in Prussia, who died on 05 August 1757.
— Pesne studied under his father, the portrait painter Thomas Pesne [1653–1727], and his maternal great-uncle, Charles de La Fosse. In 1703, as a student at the Académie Royale, he would have won the Prix de Rome with his Moses and the Daughters of Jethro, had not Jules Hardouin Mansart, adviser to the Académie, deemed all entries that year unworthy. Nevertheless Pesne left for Italy, making the acquaintance of Jean Raoux in Venice and being allowed the use of a studio in Rome by Charles Poërson, Director of the Académie de France. While in Venice, Pesne painted the portrait of Friedrich Ernst von Knyphausen (destroyed in 1893), a lively work indebted to Veronese that is said to have decided King Frederick I of Prussia to invite Pesne to Berlin.
— Antoine Pesne was born in Paris into the family of the painter T. Pesne. Antoine received his first lessons in art from his father, later he studied in the Academy and from his gifted and resourceful uncle, Charles de la Fosse [1636-1716]. In 1710-1711 Antoine made an extensive tour of Italy. He came to Berlin in 1711 to teach art to Prince Frederick and his more artistically talented younger brother. Soon Pesne became a court painter of the Prussian king and remained a highly esteemed and highly paid figure at Berlin’s court for over 46 years. Pesne painted portraits, historical and religious subjects, executed monumental decorative works. In 1720, he became a member of the Paris Academy of Arts. In 1722-1724, Pesne went to England. He was also the director of the Berlin Academy. The artist died in Berlin.
— Pesne's students included Georg Wenceslaus Knobelsdorff, Philip von Mercier, Bernhard Rode, Anna Dorothea Therbusch.

— LINKS
— Self-portrait with Daughters (1754, 167x150cm) _ Pesne was a painter of portraits and historical subjects at the court of Prussia, contributing to the French influences at the court of Frederick II. He also painted portraits at many other francophile German courts.
— Fortune Teller (1710, 222x218cm)
— Baron von Erlach with His Family (1711, 288x317cm) _ detail _ Sigismund von Erlach [1661-1722], was a military specialist; since 1699 he was the ambassador of the Prussian Elector in Switzerland; later he was a Hofmarschall of the Prussian court. He wrote the book Grundlehren des Krieges und ihre Anwendung auf die Taktik und die Mannszucht der preussischen Truppen. In the portrait the baron wears the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle. This portrait was the first work by Pesne in Berlin.
— Johann Melhior Dinglinger (1721, 149x110 cm) _ Johann Melchior Dinglinger [1664-1731], a famous Dresden jeweler, born in Biberach and trained as goldsmith in Ulm. From 1698, he was a court jeweler of the Saxon Elector and King of Poland Augustus II the Strong [1670-1733]. He is an outstanding master of decorative art of the Baroque. Today Dinglinger's reputation as one of the world's most famous goldsmiths, on par with Benvenuto Cellini and Carl Fabergé, is taken for granted. In this portrait Dinglinger is with a cup of his making known as Bath of Diana.
— Maria Susanna Dinglinger (1721, 148x113cm) _ Maria Susanna Dinglinger [1698-1726], née Guterman, the 4th wife of Johann M. Dinglinger. Their wedding bells went ding-ling in 1721.
— Frederick the Great as Crown Prince (1739, 78x63cm) _ Frederick II the Great [1712-1786], Prussian King since 1740, was born in Berlin, the son of Frederick William I and Sophia-Dorothea, daughter of George I of Great Britain. Pesne painted the portrait in 1739, the 27-year old prince Frederick II is wearing the Order of the Black Eagle, which was founded by his grandfather Frederick I in 1701. The painter foreshortened the prince’s large nose.
— Frederick II (1743, 234x161cm) _ After Frederick became king he never sat for artists and made sure that no portrait of himself was ever in sight at any royal residence. This second portrait of Frederick II by Pesne, made for Catherine II, dates to 1743. In this portrait Frederick II holds a field-marshall’s baton and wears the Russian Order of St. Andrew, which he received in 1740. This portrait was probably made on the basis of the first portrait.
— Birth of Christ (1745, 48x72cm)
— The Dancer Barbara Campanini, Called Barbarina (1745, 221x40cm) _ Barbara Campanini (1721-1799) known as Barnarina, was an Italian dancer with European fame. In 1739, she successfully performed in Paris, and then went to London for a still more triumphant career. By 1744, she was a famous dancer in Venice, and Frederick II the Great invited her to dance at the Berlin Opera from 1744 to 1748. This portrait of Barbarina was commissioned by Frederick and was originally installed behind his desk in his oval white and gold study at the Berlin Palace. The dancer's marriage to the son of the Prussian High Chancellor incurred the king's rage. Upon her divorce, Barbarina was given the title of Countess of Campanini.
— The Actress Babette Cochois (1750)
— Marianne Cochois (1750, 78x107cm) _ Marianne Cochois, a French dancer, was the première danseuse at the Berlin Opera since 1742. Frederick II the Great, Prussian king since 1740, found her equal to Terpsichore, muse of the Dance. She was the younger sister of Babette Cochois, dramatic actress.
— A Man (66x56cm)
— Luise Eleonore von Wreech, née von Schöning [1708-1784] (1737; 804x685pix, 37kb)
— Albertine (?) von der Marwitz [1718–] (1738; 871x786pix, 38kb)
— Frau von dem Bussche (1719; 828x698pix, 44kb)
— Dorothea Luise von Wittenhorst-Sonsfeld [1681-1746] (1715; 609x532pix, 17kb)
— Poetry surrounded by puti (462x1052pix, 55kb)
— Iris on the Rainbow (797x1031pix, 94kb)
— Puto (Hymen) carrying a torch (798x638pix, 30kb)
— Venus and Cupid (1742; 520x772pix, 30kb)
— Prometheus steals Fire from the Sun's Chariot (432x891pix, 30kb)
— Flirting at a Masked Ball (874x1378pix, 171kb — ZOOM to 875x1898pix, 142kb)

^ Died on 23 May 1648: Louis Le Nain, French Baroque painter born in 1593 (1603?), brother of Antoine Le Nain [1588 – 25 May 1648] and Mathieu Le Nain “le Chevalier” [1607 – 20 Apr 1677]. All three worked together and their individual works cannot be distinguished.
— There were three brothers of this name, all born in Laon. Antoine was in Paris from 1629 and his two brothers Louis and Mathieu from 1630. They had established a common workshop in Paris. They remained unmarried and are traditionally said to have worked in harmony, often collaborating on the same picture. The "Le Nain problem" of determining which of them painted what is complicated because no signed work bears a first initial and no work completed after 1648 is dated. Evaluation of the three personalities early in the 20th century was therefore based on the dubious establishment of three stylistic groups. Art scholars today no longer try to attribute individual works, and the three brothers are treated as a single artist.
— In spite of intensive study, the oeuvre of the three Le Nain brothers — Louis, Antoine, and Mathieu — remains difficult to attribute with complete assurance. Born in Laon in northern France to a family of property but of peasant origins, the brothers all elected an artistic career, moving to Paris by 1629. There they worked together in the same studio, collaborated on some works, and signed their paintings simply Le Nain. They were not only genre painters but produced portraits, mythologies, and religious pictures as well. They were patronized by the aristocracy and their paintings were prized by connoisseurs. The brothers participated in the first session of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1648. Both Antoine and Louis died that same year, presumably victims of a contagious disease. Mathieu is the youngest and best documented of the brothers, but information on Antoine and Louis is oflen too vague for firm distinctions. However, Louis has been traditionally assigned the peasant scenes which depict people with round, heavy faces and a melancholy air (The Cart, 1641, and Peasant Meal, 1642). His technique is more fluent, his work has more breadth, and his somber color schemes reflect a serious, thoughtful temperament. The Le Nains refused to embrace the prevailing tenets of French classicism, adhering rather to the realist tradition by portraying ordinary people from their provincial boyhood. As painters of reality, their work remains fundamental to the artistic heritage of France.
— Brothers Antoine, Louis, and Mathieu Le Nain were born at Laon but had all moved to Paris by 1630. The traditional birth-dates for Antoine and Louis are 1588 and 1593, respectively, but it is now thought that they were born shortly before and shortly after 1600, so that all three brothers were of much the same generation. Mathieu was made painter to the city of Paris in 1633, and all three were foundation members of the Academy in 1648. Apart from this, little is known of their careers and the assigning of works to one or the other of them is fraught with difficulty and controversy, for such paintings as are signed bear only their surname, and of those that are dated none is later than 1648, when all were still alive. The finest and most original works associated with the brothers – powerful and dignified genre scenes of peasants – are conventionally given to Louis; Antoine is credited with a group of small-scale and richly colored family scenes, mainly on copper; and in a third group, attributed to Mathieu, are paintings of more eclectic style, chiefly portraits and group portraits in a manner suggesting influence from Holland. The brothers are also said to have collaborated on religious works. In 1978-1979 a major exhibition in Paris brought together most of the pictures associated with the brothers, but it raised as many problems as it solved. It also confirmed the stature of Louis, whose sympathetic and unaffected peasant scenes are the main reason why the Le Nains have attracted so much attention. It has recently been proposed that the traditional description of the figures in these paintings as 'peasants' is a misnomer (they are said to be too well dressed for that) and that in fact they represent members of the bourgeoisie.
^
— LINKS
— Peasants Before Their House (1641, 55x70cm; half~size, 229kb _ ZOOM to full size, 915kb)
— The Supper at Emmaus (1645, 75x92cm)
— Four Figures at Table (1635, 46x55cm) _ The early years of the three Le Nain brothers, Antoine, Louis and Mathieu, are ill-documented, and their individual artistic identities are submerged under the surname with which they signed their works. They were born in Laon between 1600 and 1610 and were working in Paris by 1629; Antoine and Louis died within two days of each other in May 1648 but Mathieu survived until 1677. All three became members of the French Royal Academy at its formation in 1648. In circumstances which have not yet been clarified, Mathieu seems to have enjoyed the personal protection of Louis XIV for 'his services in the armies of the King', and from 1658 aspired to the nobility.
Although the Le Nain first made their reputation with large-scale mythological and allegorical compositions and altarpieces (many of which were lost during the French Revolution) and continued to receive commissions of this type, they are now chiefly known for their small and striking paintings of 'low-life', especially those depicting peasants. Recent scholarship has associated their new kind of realistic rustic genre, neither romanticising nor satirising country dwellers, with an emergent class of bourgeois landowners whose ideals of the dignity of agricultural labour and of the partnership between owners of land and tenant farmers they seem to reflect.
Four Figures at Table is one of many 'peasant meals' painted by the Le Nain. The strong light falling from the upper left emphasises the darkness and stillness of the humble but respectable interior - brightened only by the well-washed linen - at the same time as it delineates form, texture and expression. It has been suggested that the picture depicts the Three Ages, the old woman's lined face, marked by resignation, contrasting with the interrogatory glance of the young woman, the wide-eyed eagerness or apprehension of the little girl and the contented indifference of the boy cutting the bread. But an allegorical interpretation seems neither necessary nor probable; the painting speaks to us directly of shared human destiny, borne with dignity.

What looks like a pentimento, a painter's change of mind, in the face of the little boy has been revealed by X-radiography to be a crimson ornament in the costume of a bust-length portrait of a bearded man painted underneath. This figure is not a sketch, but a finished, or nearly finished, work. He wears a ruff and a grey doublet with cream braiding. Whether the sitter refused the portrait, or was painted in preparation for a larger picture or an engraving, we do not know, but it seems that not long afterwards, and in the same studio, this prosperous citizen was effaced by four country people at their frugal meal.
^ — Venus at the Forge of Vulcan (1641, 150x117cm) _ It is unusual for this often repeated mythological subject to be treated as a genre piece, although this occurs in Velázquez's celebrated The Forge of Vulcan (1630). The problem of collaboration of the three Le Nain brothers is highlighted in the Venus at the Forge of Vulcan. It is dated 1641 which was during the last period when all three brothers were alive. In this painting the figure of Venus herself seems an uneasy adaptation of a Renaissance model. Perhaps including an obvious quotation was the artist's way of making it plain to the client that the picture had a well-known precedent.
The rest of the picture, however, reveals great powers of observation. Especially perceptive are the two figures in the background, silhouetted against the light of the furnace. In all the French art of the seventeenth century, this is the first time that a painter has been able to observe nature without adding mannerisms of his own: even Georges de La Tour at his most realistic created an artificial world in which everything was secondary to his fascination with candlelight. Here, the figure on the left glances towards Venus in a completely natural way, and it is this naturalism, which occurs again and again in parts of their pictures, that sets the Le Nain brothers apart from all their French contemporaries.
— Blacksmith at His Forge (69x57cm) _ The Venus at the Forge of Vulcan and the Blacksmith at His Forge are close in style, in the latter the artist simply removed Venus and painted a straightforward genre picture in which he could concentrate on the most sympathetic rendering of men working in a forge. The smith himself looks towards the spectator as if he has been disturbed by the artist and asked to hold the pose while a photograph is taken. The other figures look in different directions, exactly as a group of people will do today when caught unawares by the camera. Especially perceptive is the depiction of the seated old man on the right - he is staring into space exactly as many old people tend to do, particularly when they are preoccupied with something which is not part of the event in front of them. The gazes of the three children are alert but lacking the concentration of the adults. Thus the painters of this picture have observed, for the first time in French painting, a 'slice of life'. The depiction of the better-off peasantry is interesting from a sociological point of view because there are so few renderings of that class, but, even more important, it showed that masterpieces could be produced from humble material. This realistic treatment of 'low' subjects was not to be found again in French art until Courbet in the nineteenth century.
— Peasants at their Cottage Door (1645, 55x68cm) _ In this painting the approach is unusually stark for the Le Nain brothers. Instead of a landscape background, there is a two-storey house belonging to the peasants, whose relative prosperity is indicated by the glass in the windows (all over Europe at this time many of the poorer classes lived in conditions far more primitive than those recorded by the Le Nain brothers). This unassuming picture is one of the most perceptive paintings to be produced in the 1640s. As in the Forge, the treatment of the low-life subject is given a totally unexpected dignity. The boy on the right and the old man next to him stare through us into space, and together they counterbalance the large area of pale stone of the house behind them. Into their expressions the artist have distilled a timelessness as far removed from anecdote as possible. Whereas in Georges de La Tour this timelessness is easier to understand because of the spiritual content of his subjects, in the depiction of a peasant's face it is rare for the artist not to be interested in telling a story, but simply to be observing what he sees. This approach, which was to preoccupy many of the most important painters of the nineteenth century, from Courbet to the Impressionists, was an anachronism in the seventeenth century and the reason why the Le Nain brothers were so untypical of artists of their time.
— Landscape with Peasants and a Chapel (41x55cm) _ Like their peasant scenes, the landscapes of the Le Nain brothers are careful observations of what they saw, rather than derivations from other painters' works. An example is this painting, in which, although figures dominate the foreground, the main effort has been concentrated on the landscape. In the distance there is a large village with traces of its decaying fortifications, and a small Gothic chapel outside its walls. Such a sight may still be seen today, in the remoter parts of northern and eastern France. Again, the Le Nain brothers have told us what the people and the landscape of the time looked like.

— Peasant Family (1640, 113x160cm) _ This painting is the collective work of Louis and Antoine Le Nain. The three brothers produced their work collectively. This is supported by the fact that they never used any other form of signature but 'Le Nain', as a kind of studio stamp. It explains the existence of complex pictures where brilliant passages of paintings are to be found alongside mediocre areas executed by assistants or students. But there are also others of a high level where the brothers worked alone or with each other, without help from outsiders. The Louvre has two paintings depicting peasant families by Le Nain, one of them is an austere and virile work. This one, however, strikes a note of profound intimacy, a warmth of spirit, like the atmosphere of a domestic festivity. The general harmony of greys and browns is in keeping with the spirit of austerity reigning in French painting in the time of Louis XIII. Unlike the Flemings, who made their scenes of rustic life an occasion for depicting the unleashing of the coarsest sensual instincts, Louis Le Nain saw in the peasant soul a profound gravity, even solemnity; the expression of a life of toil whose hard realities have bestowed on it a sense of its own dignity. The paint quality is flowing and rich, with touches of impasto used not simply for effect, as in the work of Frans Hals, but giving proof of a sensitive brush, searching out the modelling with attention and feeling. Several early copies give evidence of the paintings reputation.
— Peasant Interior (1642, 56x65cm) _ In the pictures of peasant interiors by the Le Nain brothers there is as much diversity as in the exterior scenes, and attempts have een made to group them round each of the brothers. The categories into which they have been divided make sense, even if no name can convincingly attached to each one. Closest to the Dutch models, especially to the art of Jan Miense Molenaer, is the group of peasant scenes painted on a minute scale. One of the best is the Peasant Interior signed 'Lenain fecit' and dated 1642. Although exquisitely painted, the figures seem to be in a very curious spatial relationship with one another; the mother seems far too small and the children far too big. All their expressions are lively and alert and, as usual in Le Nain, they look in different directions, as if caught by surprise.
— The Peasant Meal (1642, 97x122cm) _ The Louvre has two paintings depicting peasant families by Le Nain. This one of them is an austere and virile work. The other one, however, strikes a note of profound intimacy, a warmth of spirit, like the atmosphere of a domestic festivity.
— Smokers in an Interior (1643, 117x137cm) _ Not all the Le Nain genre scenes depict peasants. Some of them show middle-class sitters, even rarer in art than the depiction of the poor. It is one of these larger 'bourgeois compositions' which admits the Le Nain brothers into that small group of painters capable of creating a masterpiece. This is the Smokers in an Interior in the Louvre, dated 1643. Its technique must have been learned during the painting of the Forge, but the brushwork is far more precise. The composition is much less original, being closer to the type familiar from the Dutch. The figures are grouped round a table illuminated by a solitary candle, and the figure on the left has fallen asleep at the table.
In this painting it seems that the depiction of low life — here middle-class men smoking in an interior — has risen beyond its normal pictorial limitations to create a masterpiece which is, perforce, unexpected. While Nicolas Poussin was obsessed with the concept of beauty and with the need to be able to paint exactly what he thought, here the painter's desire arises from an opposite need, the need to observe. Each of the models appears to be a portrait, although it is difficult to explain why the sitters should have chosen to be depicted with such casualness.
There is no clue to the possibility of a confraternity, although the curious emblems on the carpet on the table could be symbols of some secret society. The eerie quality of the picture is emphasized by the fall of the shadows on the faces and by the way in which the figures stare into space just like the peasants in other pictures and the seated figure on the right has all the appearance of being under the influence of some drug. There is no satisfactory explanation for such a picture; it is as if this trio of painters, observers of a small fragment of their times, never intended the meanings of their pictures to be divined. _ detail _ Each of the models appears to be a portrait, although it is difficult to explain why the sitters should have chosen to be depicted with such casualness. There is no clue to the possibility of a confraternity, although the curious emblems on the carpet on the table could be symbols of some secret society. The eerie quality of the picture is emphasized by the fall of the shadows on the faces and by the way in which the figures stare into space just like the peasants in other pictures and the seated figure on the right has all the appearance of being under the influence of some drug.

^ Born on 23 May 1813: Charles-Émile Jacque, French Barbizon School painter, printmaker, and illustrator, who died on 07 May 1894.
— In 1830 he worked briefly for an engraver who specialized in cartography, and in that year he produced his first etching, a copy of a head after Rembrandt. From 1831 to 1836 Jacque served in the infantry, seeing action in the siege of Antwerp in 1832. During military service he found time to sketch scenes of army life and is reputed to have submitted two works to the Salon of 1833 in Paris. In 1836 he went to London where he found employment as an illustrator. He was back in France in 1838 and visited his parents in Burgundy, where he became enamored of the countryside.
— After his schooling, Charles-Émile Jacque began work in a notary's office, but he quickly departed to pursue printmaking. Apprenticed at seventeen to a map engraver, he made his first etching the same year, a female head after Rembrandt.
      Dissatisfied with cartography, Jacque joined the army, where he served seven years. During this time he prepared the lithographic album Militairiana (1840), praised by poet and critic Charles Baudelaire for the frankness of its caricatures of military life. Jacque worked in London in 1836-38 producing woodcuts to illustrate Shakespeare and a history of Greece.
      Back in France he established his reputation as an illustrator and contributed caricatures to Charivari in 1843 and 1844. Married in 1843, he made his debut at the Salon as an etcher two years later, his prints prompting Baudelaire's admiration once again. Jacque played a key role in the revival of etching in France during the 1840s, but he also began to paint in this period. He depicted windmills at Montmartre in emulation of Michel, whose dramatic landscapes would remain a source of inspiration.
      Jacque's realist paintings of animals in the country, especially pigs, chickens, and sheep, soon became his hallmark, and in 1848 the state bought his picture Herd of Cattle at the Drinking Hole (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers). In the spring of 1849, to avoid cholera in Paris, Jacque and his friend of three years Millet (q.v.) moved their families to adjoining properties in the artists' colony of Barbizon. Jacque introduced Millet to rustic themes, while Millet's work prompted Jacque to imbue his peasant subjects with more vigor.
      Besides making art, Jacque bred poultry, cultivated asparagus, and invested in real estate in Barbizon. He also wrote and illustrated the book Le poulailler: Monographie des poules indigènes et exotiques (1858). These business interests distinguished him from his Barbizon colleagues and contributed to the cooling of his friendship with Millet and others. In the 1850s and 1860s Jacque experimented with larger print formats, and he exhibited animal paintings at the Salon for the first time in 1861, winning a third-class medal. After 1860 he spent more time in Paris than Barbizon and in the 1870s established a factory for the production of "artistic furniture" based on Gothic and Renaissance pieces. Between 1870 and 1888 Jacque did not show at the Salon, but he continued to produce and sell works through dealers. Repeating the same themes, he began to use the palette knife and painted more thickly and freely. Combining art and business, he helped establish and became president of the Société des Animaliers Français in 1881.
      Outliving the other Barbizon artists, the elderly Jacque called himself "the last of the romantics." He profited from the Anglo-American taste for landscape in the late nineteenth century. At the 1889 Exposition Universelle Jacque obtained a gold medal as painter and a grand prix as printmaker.
— Auguste Delâtre was an assistant of Jacque.
— Photo of Jacque

— LINKS
— A Shepherdess with her Flock near a Stream (81x66cm) — The Swineherd (1890, 69x100cm)
— A Flock of Sheep in a Barn (74x93cm) — A Shepherdess Watering her Flock (47x39cm)
— A Shepherdess with her Flock in a Woodland Clearing (46x55cm) — Homeward Bound (71x100cm)
— Le Troupeau (73x100cm) — Les Moutons dans le Sous-Bois (49x119cm)
— Sheep At Pasture (66x56cm) — Shepherdess (81x61cm) — Le Petit Porcher
— 102 prints at FAMSF.

^ Died on 23 (or 24) May 1782: Vigilius Eriksen, (or Erichsen), Danish painter, active also in Russia, specialized in portraits (especially of Catherine the Great), born on 02 September 1722.
— He was apprenticed to the portrait painter Johann Salomon Wahl in Copenhagen. In 1755 he competed unsuccessfully for the gold medal at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen with a historical painting, Lot and his Wife. In a letter he complained that the rules did not allow him to enter a portrait, a genre more suited to his talents. Presumably in 1756 he completed the portraits of the registrar of the royal art collections, Lorenz Spengler and his wife Gertrud Sabine (Trott) Spengler. These portraits already show the specific features of Eriksen’s style, characterized by precise rendering of the sitter, distinct modeling of form and a cool virtuosity in the unemphatic treatment of dresses and accessories. Erichsen's magnificent full-length portrait of the Dowager Queen Juliane Marie (1778, 284x194cm _ b&w image) was his principal Danish work. He subsequently worked in Russia.

— Grand Prince Pavel Petrovich in his Study (1766; 91kb)
— Catherine II the Great (471x363pix, 35kb)
— Catherine II in Profile (1761, 54x42cm; 575x444pix, 98kb)
— Catherine II in front of a Mirror (1763, 262x201cm)
— Catherine II in a Guard uniform on horseback, on 28 June 1762 (1764, 195x178cm; 575x520pix, 125kb) _ Katharina II af Rusland, ridende i garderuniform på hesten Brillante, den 28. juni 1762 (97x88cm; 525x469pix, 41kb) _ 2 almost versions differing only in the size of the originals and in minor details, mostly of the background.
— Caspar von Saldern (25x18cm) — Duke Frederick (1777, 236x196cm; 575x389pix, 77kb)
— Kunstdrejer og kunstkammerforvalter Lorenz Spengler (1758, 78x62cm; 601x484pix, 36kb)
— Gertrud Sabine (Trott) Spengler (1758, 79x62cm; )
— Peter Cramer (1778; 78x62cm; 320x244pix, 14kb)
— Storfyrste Paul, senere Zar Paul I (1764, 61x49cm; 320x251pix, 15kb) _ Pavel Petrovich [01 Oct 1754 – 23 Mar 1801] was the son of Peter III [21 Feb 1728 – 18 Jul 1762] and Catherine II the Great [02 May 1729– 17 Nov 1796], who took power on 09 July 1762 from mentally feeble Peter III, who had reigned from 05 January 1762, (and had him assassinated) and marginalized Paul, who nevertheless succeeded her at her death and reversed many of her policies. His disastrous reign was ended when high officials, with the tacit approval of his son Alexander I [23 Dec 1777 – 01 Dec 1825], assassinated him, whereupon Alexander became tsar, as had been Catherine the Great's intention in the first place..

Died on a 23 May:

1955 Auguste Elisée Chabaud, French painter, sculptor, and writer, born on 03 (04?) October 1882. He trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Avignon under Pierre Grivolas [1824–1905]. After moving to Paris in 1899 he attended Fernand Cormon’s atelier in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s studio in the Académie Julian. He also studied at the Académie Carrière, where he met Matisse, Jean Puy, André Derain and Pierre Laprade. While family responsibilities from 1901 and military service in World War I sharply curtailed much of his early output, he nonetheless produced noteworthy paintings and sculptures from 1907, the first year he exhibited at the Paris Salon, to 1913, when he exhibited at the Armory Show in New York. His reputation was assured by 1912, the year of his one-man show at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris. He returned to Graveson in 1919, remaining there until his death.

^ 1726 Jean-Baptiste Nattier, suicide, French painter born on 27 September 1678. He was taught first by his father, Marc Nattier [1642 – 24 Oct 1705], a portraitist and his mother, miniaturist Marie Nattier [née Courtois] [1655 – 13 Oct 1703]. He had a royal licence to reproduce Rubens’s famous cycle of paintings the History of Marie de’ Medici, then in the Palais du Luxembourg, Paris. Before he died, Marc made the licence over to Jean-Baptiste and his other son Jean-Marc Nattier [17 Mar 1685 – 07 Nov 1766]. The two produced a series of drawings after it for some of the foremost engravers of the day, including Gérard Edelinck, Bernard Picart and Gaspard Duchange. The drawings appeared in 1710 under the title La Galerie du Palais du Luxembourg. Both painters subsequently worked as history painters, as had been their father’s intention, but Jean-Marc is best known for his fashionable portraits.
From 1704 to 1709 Jean-Baptiste Nattier was a student at the Académie de France in Rome. In 1712 he became a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture on presentation of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife. He is principally known for his history paintings, such as David with the Head of Goliath. His career came to an abrupt end when a scandal in his private life resulted in his expulsion from the Académie Royale and his imprisonment in the Bastille, where he took his own life.

^ 1669 Joris Abrahamszoon van der Haagen, (or Hagen, Verhaege, Verhagen), Dutch Baroque painter born in the period 1615-1620. Panoramiste de talent et peintre occasionnel de vues urbaines, délicates et sereines, Joris van der Haagen ajoute à son riche répertoire de topographe et d'artiste itinérant de remarquables paysages boisés, inspirés quelquefois par les forêts des environs de La Haye. — LINKS — A River Landscape (1660, 109x129cm) _ This painting was previously attributed to Jan Looten [1618 - 1680] but shows close similarities to signed paintings by Joris van der Haagen. Van der Haagen painted wooded landscapes as well as his better-known topographical views. This picture can be compared to similar signed works by him. — Small pasture with cattle in the woods (50x60cm) _ The cattle was painted by Paulus Potter [1625-1654].

Born on a 23 May:

^ 1861 József Rippl-Rónai, Hungarian painter, printmaker, pastellist, ceramicist, and designer, who died on 27 (25?) November 1927. — [He made so little of a ripple in art history that I cannot find any example of his work on the internet.] — In 1881 he graduated in pharmacy from the Budapest University of Sciences. He worked as a pharmacist for a short time and then became tutor to Count Ödön Zichy. In 1884 he registered at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, becoming a student in the life class and studying under Johann Caspar Herterich [1843–1905] and Wilhelm von Diez [1839–1907]. In 1887 he went to Paris to work in the studio of Mihály Munkácsy, for whom he copied and finished paintings for export to the US. In 1889 Rippl-Rónai went to Pont-Aven, where he painted In a Pont-Aven Bar (1889) and Woman in a White Spotted Dress (1889), which shows the influence of Whistler (which persisted throughout his career) and in which, as in many of his paintings of this period, the dominant color is black. In 1890 he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris and became friendly with James Pitcairn-Knowles, Aristide Maillol and Edouard Vuillard. Between 1890 and 1900 he made a number of embroideries and tapestries with the help of his wife.

1846 John Alexander Harrington Bird, British artist who died in 1936.

1810 Alfred de Dreux (or Dedreux), French artist who died on 05 March 1860.

^ 1620 Pieter Neeffs II, Flemish painter who died after 1675, son of Peeter Neeffs I [1578-1660], brother of Lodewijk (or Lodevicus) Neeffs [22 Jan 1617 – 1649]. By 1640 he was collaborating with his father and was never apparently enrolled as an independent master in the Guild of St Luke. He was still active in 1675, the year that appears on his last known dated painting. All three members of the family specialized in paintings of architectural interiors. Their most frequent subject was the interior of Antwerp Cathedral; the details of sculpture, altars and paintings vary in accuracy, and sometimes the subject seems to be very freely interpreted. The Neefs also liked to depict the effects of artificial illumination in crypt-like spaces (in the manner of Hendrick van Steenwijck the younger). Iconographic and stylistic similarities make the works of Pieter I and Pieter II often difficult to distinguish. On a few occasions the father signed his works Den Auden Neefs. Generally speaking, those works dated before 1640 (when Pieter II would have become involved in the workshop) are superior in quality. It is also possible that works attributed to either Pieter I or Pieter II are, in fact, by Lodewijk, the least-known member of the family. The figures in the architectural views by the various Neefs were painted by such artists as Frans Francken II and Frans Francken III, Jan Breughel I, Sebastiaen Vrancx, Adriaen van Stalbemt, David Teniers II, Gonzales Coques, and Bonaventura Peeters.

^ 1614 (baptized as an infant) Bertholet Flémal (or Flémalle, Flemaël), Flemish French painter and architect who died on 10 July 1675. He was born into a family of artists, and his first apprenticeship was probably in Liège with his father, Renier Flémal [–1585], a painter of stained glass. Bertholet was later a student of Henri Trippet [1600–1674] before completing his training during the 1630s with Gérard Douffet. In 1638 Flémal went to Rome and on the return journey visited Florence and stayed for some time in Paris. He had returned to Liège by 1646. Flémal had a successful career there, painting for private collectors, but he was also commissioned to work for the many religious establishments. His patron was Canon Lambert de Liverloo, Chancellor to the Prince-Bishop of Liège. In addition, Flémal made designs for religious buildings and fittings as well as for his own house, but none of this architectural work has survived. In 1670 he was at the peak of his career. He was painter to the Prince-Bishop, Maximilian-Henry of Bavaria, and for Louis XIV of France he painted an allegory, Religion Protecting France (1670; destroyed in 1871), for the ceiling of the audience chamber at the Tuileries, Paris. In the same year he was appointed Professor at the Académie Royale in Paris. The Prince-Bishop made him a canonical prebendary of the collegiate church of St Paul at Liège. — Jean-Guillaume Carlier was a student of Flémalle.

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