Flemish, 16th – 17th century, male.
Born in Brussels.
Engraver, draughtsman, jeweller.
Flemish School.
Franz Aspruck was probably a pupil of R. Spranger. A number of plates by Aspruck, bearing the initials F. A., survive: 13 plates after Agostino Caracci and a small allegorical depiction of ...
(b Florence, Oct 31, 1604; d Madrid, July 1657).
Italian painter, draughtsman, engineer and stage designer, active also in central Europe and Spain. He was a pupil of Giovanni Bilivert from 1612 to 1620 and studied with Giulio Parigi. In 1622 he went to Vienna as assistant to Giovanni Pieroni da Galliano and thence to Prague, where he decorated the chapel (1630) with frescoes with scenes from the Life of St Wenceslas and the Life of the Virgin, the Knight’s Hall (destr.; rest. 1853) with ceiling frscoes including Albrecht von Wallenstein as Mars, and he worked on other parts of the Wallenstein Palace (see Wallenstein Palace (Prague)). He is documented in 1625 in Florence, where he became a teacher of perspective drawing. In 1626–7 the Medici employed him as military engineer at the fortress at Livorno; here, with Stefano della Bella, he drew harbour and river scenes (e.g. Peasants Waiting on a Quay, Florence, Uffizi). Baccio executed frescoes in Florentine palazzi, and his contributions to the decoration of the Casa Buonarotti include three ...
(b Douai, c. 1470; d Douai, between June 1535 and March 1536).
South Netherlandish painter and designer. His father, George Bellegambe, a cabinetmaker and musician, was a prominent citizen of Douai. Jean is first mentioned in a document of 1504, when he is referred to as a master painter, a burgher and married. His teacher is unknown, but his work bears some imprint of the art of Jan Provoost, who inherited Simon Marmion’s studio. However, Bellegambe might equally have been apprenticed in Bruges or Brussels (possibly in the atelier of the Master of the Legend of St Mary Magdalen, for example), or even in Antwerp. The calm and serenity of Bellegambe’s compositions, his treatment of landscape, his lightness of technique, his pursuit of clear, soft colours and delicate harmonies all indicate links with the work of Gérard David and Quinten Metsys. In the 17th century Bellegambe was known as ‘the Master of Colours’.
Bellegambe executed many altarpieces for the churches of Douai and nearby abbeys, as well as designing numerous costumes and embroideries. Many of his commissions are well documented. Around ...
(b Modena, c. 1490; d London, ?Feb 15, 1569).
Italian stuccoist, sculptor, painter and costume designer, active in France and England. He worked in France as a painter (1515–22), probably under Jean Perréal and Jean Bourdichon, then in Mantua, possibly under Giulio Romano, possibly calling himself ‘da Milano’. By 1532 he was at Fontainebleau and in 1533 was engaged with Francesco Primaticcio on the stuccoes and painting of the Chambre du Roi and was one of the highest paid of his collaborators. He may also have worked on the Galerie François I. He was described in 1534 as sculpteur et faiseur de masques and in 1535 made masquerade costumes for the wedding of the Comte de Saint-Pol. He was later involved in a fraud and by August 1537 was in England, where he settled. By 1540 Bellin was employed at Whitehall Palace, probably on making stucco chimneypieces, including that in the privy chamber. The following year he and his company of six were working on the slate carvings at ...
[Foppa, Cristoforo]
(b Mondonico, nr Pavia, c. 1452; d between Dec 6, 1526 and April 1, 1527).
Italian goldsmith, coin- and gem-engraver, jeweller, medallist and dealer. Son of the goldsmith Gian Maffeo Foppa, from 1480 he served at the Milanese court with his father, eventually becoming personal goldsmith and jeweller to Ludovico Sforza (il Moro), Duke of Milan. In 1487 Caradosso was in Florence, where his appraisal of an antique cornelian was highly esteemed. He worked in Hungary in the service of King Matthias Corvinus, probably in August 1489; a later visit to the court was cut short by the King’s death (1490). Between 1492 and 1497 Caradosso travelled to various Italian towns to buy jewels and other precious objects for Ludovico il Moro. He visited Rome, Viterbo and Florence early in 1496, when the Medici family’s possessions were sold off after the expulsion of Piero de’ Medici (1471–1503) from Florence.
After the fall of Ludovico il Moro in 1500, Caradosso remained for some years in Lombardy. In ...
French, 17th century, male.
Engraver, jeweller.
Jean-Charles Chéron was brother to Henri and father to the medallist Charles-Jean Chéron. He worked in Nancy for Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine.
French, 17th century, male.
Active in Strasbourg.
Draughtsman. Costume studies.
(b Biberbach, Dec 26, 1664; d Dresden, March 6, 1731).
German goldsmith and jeweller. He was one of the most famous goldsmiths of his time, and almost all his works are in the Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden. After his training in Ulm he travelled as a journeyman to Augsburg, Nuremberg and Vienna. He is first recorded in Dresden in 1692. His two brothers, the enameller Georg Friedrich Dinglinger (1666–1720) and the jeweller Georg Christoph Dinglinger (1668–1728), are documented as active there in 1693; they remained his closest collaborators, particularly Georg Friedrich.
From the beginning of his career, Johann Melchior Dinglinger worked for Frederick-Augustus I of Saxony, even before the latter became Elector in 1694. The jewellery produced for Frederick-Augustus’s coronation as King Augustus II of Poland (also known as Augustus the Strong) in 1697 was Dinglinger’s first important commission. In 1698 he was appointed Court Jeweller, and all his projects were personally supervised by the King. In the late 17th century and early 18th Dinglinger probably produced most of the jewellery for the court: almost all the orders of chivalry and military decorations came from his workshop, including those in emeralds and diamonds for the revived Polish Order of the Knights of the White Eagle. Various designs for banquets for the King are also kept in the Grünes Gewölbe....
(b 1802; d 1855).
French silversmith and jeweller. The pieces that he exhibited at the Paris Industrial Exhibitions of 1839 and 1844 made him the most celebrated silversmith in France. He worked in a variety of styles, notably Renaissance Revival, but also produced distinguished Gothic Revival and Rococo-style pieces. His most famous creation is the toilette of the Duchess of Parma (...
British, 16th – 17th century, male.
Born 1547, in Exeter; died c. 1619, in London.
Miniaturist, jeweller.
Nicholas Hilliard, the son of a goldsmith, was apprenticed to his father's trade but preferred the art of the miniature. In 1570 his name appears on the register of the Goldsmiths' Company, and he became miniaturist and goldsmith to Queen Elizabeth I, of whom he painted a number of portraits, including one which shows her covered with jewels depicted in detail - he was, after all, a jeweller. He may have visited France and perhaps met Ronsard. In ...
Bohemian, 17th century, male.
Born 23 July 1607, in Prague; died 25 March 1677, in London.
Engraver, reproductions engraver, draughtsman, watercolourist, illustrator. Historical subjects, portraits, urban landscapes, landscapes, animals, costume studies. Maps.
Bohemian School.
Wenceslaus Hollar was the son of a clerk at the court of justice in Prague, and his family intended him to take up a legal career. However, he left Prague in 1627 and settled in Frankfurt, where he became a pupil of Matthaus Merian the Elder, from whom he learned the art of cartography. He travelled across Germany, making numerous drawings and engravings of the towns he visited. After stays in Strasbourg, Frankfurt and Mainz, he met the Earl of Arundel, English ambassador to Ferdinand III, in Cologne and returned with him to Prague. From there he accompanied him to Vienna and finally to England, where he arrived in 1637....
French, 17th century, male.
Painter.
Local figures, local scenes, costume studies.
Georges de La Chapelle came from Caen. He was active between 1638 and 1648. He accompanied the French ambassadors to the sultan of Constantinople, where he produced portraits of this king’s most famous favourites, which were published in 1648 under the title Collection of Various Portraits of the Principal Ladies of the Turkish Sultan’s Court... ‘by George de la Chapelle, Town Painter of Caen.’ N. Cochin (probably Nicolas Cochin), engraved the 12 plates for the work after paintings of La Chapelle’s that have since been lost. During his stay in Toulon (where he arrived in 1639), La Chapelle painted four pictures of battle scenes, coats-of-arms, and an Arrival of Comte Alais in Toulon.
Thematic collective exhibitions include: 2002, Mysteries of the 17th century: An Exploration of the Graphic Art Collection (Les Mystérieux du XVIIe siècle. Une enquête au cabinet d’art graphique...
(fl 1482–1522).
Italian bronze-founder. Born into a well-known Venetian family, he is mentioned in 1482, first as a goldsmith and then as a jeweller, which suggests that he might have been carving hard stones. In 1484 he was employed at the Mint as an engraver of dies. Exiled in August 1487 for his part in an inheritance fraud, he was recalled from Ferrara in September 1488 to cast the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni from the clay model left by Verrocchio at his death. He completed the casting, putting his signature on the girth strap (
(fl 1450–75).
Italian painter. A minor but prolific Milanese artist, he first appears as a creditor of the Borromeo family in Milan in 1450 and 1451. The following year, several letters addressed to Duke Francesco Sforza (reg 1450–66) show him as painter primarily of pennants and horse trappings. Moretti continued to work for the Sforza family during the 1450s. In 1462, however, he was banished from Milan for writing a defamatory letter about the wife of the court physician Cristoforo da Soncino.
Documents after 1463 indicate that the artist then moved into the nearby region of Piedmont, where he painted coats of arms and the communal tower in Turin. In 1467 he decorated a chapel in Casale Monferrato for William VI, Margrave of Monferrat (reg 1464–83), and three years later he provided an altarpiece for S Marco, Vercelli. He left incomplete fresco decorations in this same church when he returned to Milan in ...
(b Albino, ?1520–24; d Albino, ?after March 5, 1578).
Italian painter. He was the most significant painter of the 16th-century school of Bergamo and is best known for his portraits, which feature a naturalistic rendering of both faces and costume and an objective approach to character.
A document dated 6 March 1549 refers to Moroni as an administrative procurator, which implies that he was then at least 25 years old. He was trained in Brescia, in the workshop of Moretto. Moroni’s religious paintings, particularly the early works, are characterized by explicit borrowings from Moretto’s pictures. Two drawings by Moroni (both 1543; Brescia, Pin. Civ. Tosio–Martinengo), his first securely dated works, show figures of saints copied from paintings by Moretto. It is likely that Moroni collaborated with the Brescian painter in some of his works: for instance, some scholars have identified his hand in Moretto’s St Roch and the Angel (Budapest, Mus. F.A.) and the Coronation of the Virgin (Brescia, S Angelo). Others have attributed outright to Moroni paintings once given to ...
(b Milan, 1515–19; d Madrid, Sept 23, 1589).
Italian medallist, sculptor, gem-engraver and jeweller. Nothing is known of his background and early life. His family apparently came from Trezzo-sull Adda but were living in Milan at the time of his birth. By 1550 he had achieved a level of fame that deserved mention in the first edition of Vasari’s Vite. His activities in Milan, in which city he lived until 1555, included gem-engraving and the fabrication of objects in precious and semi-precious stones for Cosimo I, Duke of Florence. Several letters in archives in Florence, dated 1552, 1572 and 1575, describe this work and the difficulties Trezzo experienced in receiving payment. Between 1548 and 1578 Jacopo produced eleven medals, including variants, eight of which are signed. The first of these is the medal of the Cremonese engineer Gianello delle Torre, of which one example (Florence, Bargello) bears the date 1548. Although not signed, it has been attributed both to Trezzo and to ...
(b 1799; d 1868).
French silversmith, active also in England. After an early career as an independent craftsman specializing in Renaissance revival jewellery, some of which was bought in the belief that it was Renaissance silver. He later joined the Paris firm of François-Désiré Froment-Meurice , for whom his work in the Renaissance style (in collaboration with Jules Wièse (...
Dutch, 16th – 17th century, male.
Born 1555, in Utrecht; died 1613 or 1614, in Prague.
Painter, engraver, draughtsman, medallist, goldsmith, jeweller.
Munich School, Prague School.
Paulus van Vianen was the pupil of his father Willem Ezestensz. van Vianen, a medal maker and goldsmith, and of Cornelius Flertz or Elertz. He first travelled to Florence and then came to Munich in 1596 where he became a master in 1599. He was appointed jeweller to Emperor Rudolph II....
(b Hamburg, June 13, 1866; d Hamburg, Oct 26, 1929).
German art historian. His research interests ranged widely, including the art of the Renaissance, costume, festivals, medicine, astrology and magic, but his primary contribution to cultural history is the Warburg Institute.
Warburg was born into a wealthy Jewish banking family and was never obliged to seek academic employment. He trained at the University of Bonn with scholars such as Hermann Usener (1834–1905) and Karl Lamprecht (1856–1915), becoming interested in psychology, in a broad evolutionary perspective and in historical periods of transition. He continued his studies in Munich, Florence and Strasbourg, finally completing a dissertation in 1891 on how Botticelli’s Primavera and the Birth of Venus demonstrate the ‘afterlife of the Antique’. At this time Jacob Burckhardt’s interpretation of the Renaissance as a period of emancipation from medieval values and the rise of the modern individual was being challenged by scholars such as Henry Thode, who argued for an important role for Christian influences. Warburg can be seen as siding with Burckhardt in this disagreement; but whereas Burckhardt conceived of history as progress and the Renaissance as a cultural unity within that progressive movement, Warburg interpreted the Renaissance as a period of transition and uncertainty, viewing it as if abstracted from the course of time. For Warburg history was a vital and energetic tradition, communicated through images as well as words, but these documents could best be understood by looking for their non-temporal unity. Such themes were particularly evident in his dissertation and his writings of ...
