English Baroque Era Painter, ca.1617-1694,was a British baroque portrait painter. Wright trained in Edinburgh under the Scots painter George Jamesone, and acquired a considerable reputation as an artist and scholar during a long sojourn in Rome. There he was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, and was associated with some of the leading artists of his generation. He was engaged by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, to acquire artworks in Oliver Cromwell's England in 1655. He took up permanent residence in England from 1656, and served as court painter before and after the English Restoration. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he was a favourite of the restored Stuart court, a client of both Charles II and James II, and was a witness to many of the political manoeuvrings of the era. In the final years of the Stuart monarchy he returned to Rome as part of an embassy to Pope Innocent XI. Wright is currently rated as one of the leading indigenous British painters of his generation and largely for the distinctive realism in his portraiture. Perhaps due to the unusually cosmopolitan nature of his experience, he was favoured by patrons at the highest level of society in an age in which foreign artists were usually preferred. Wright's paintings of royalty and aristocracy are included amongst the collections of many leading galleries today.   Related Paintings of John Michael Wright :. | Sir Neil O'Neill | Painting by John Michael Wright of Catherine Cecil and James Cecil, | Portrait painter | Lely's Duchess of Cleveland as the penitent Magdalen | James Cecil by John Michael Wright |
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Peter Johannes Brandl
Petr Brandl (Peter Johannes Brandl or Jan Petr Brandl) (October 24, 1668 - September 24, 1735) was a painter of the late Baroque, famous in his time but - due to isolation behind the Iron Curtain - rather forgotten until recently. He was of German-speaking Austrian descent in the bilingual kingdom of Bohemia. His mother was from Czech peasant family, that lived in Přestanice (a village in Bohemia, now part of Hlavnovice). According to the Grove Dictionary of Art and other sources, Brandl was born into a craftsmanes family (his father seems to have been a goldsmith) and apprenticed around 1683 - 1688 to Kristien Schröder (1655 - 1702). Brandl employed strong chiaroscuro, areas of heavy impasto and very plastic as well as dramatic figures. The major art museum in Prague, called the National Gallery, has an entire hall devoted to the artist's works, including the wonderful "Bust of an Apostle" from some time before 1725.
SALZILLO, Francisco
Spanish sculptor (b. 1707, Murcia, d. 1783, Murcia). Spanish sculptor of Italian descent. He was trained by his father, Nicol Salzillo (1672-1727), a Neapolitan sculptor who had settled in Murcia, whose first documented work is dated 1700. Francisco also studied with the Jesuits and was taught drawing and sculpture by the cleric and painter Manuel Senchez ( fl 1731-9). He entered the Dominican Order in Murcia as a novice but left to take charge of his father's studio at the latter's death in 1727. Francisco was assisted by his brothers, Juan Antonio Salzillo and Patricio Salzillo, a priest, and by his sister, Ines Salzillo, who specialized in painting carved religious statues. In 1746 Francisco married Juana Vallejo Martenez, and in 1755 he was appointed escultor y modelista by the municipal government (ayuntamiento) and Inspector to the Inquisition for painting and sculpture in Murcia. In 1763 he established an academy
Jens Juel
1745-1802 Danish Jens Juel Galleries was a Danish painter, primarily known for his many portraits, of which the largest collection is on display at Frederiksborg Castle. He was born in the house of his mothers brother Johan Jørgensen, who was a school teacher in Balslev on the island of Fyn. Jens Juel was the illegitimate son of Vilhelmine Elisabeth Juel (January 1725 ?C March 1799), who served at Wedellsborg and a fine gentleman, probably a Wedell or Lord Jens Juel. When Juel was one year old, his mother married Jørgen Jørgensen (1724 ?C June 4, 1796), who was a school master in Gamborg, not far from Balslev, and he grew up in Gamborg. He showed an interest in painting from an early age, and his parents sent him to be an apprentice of painter Johann Michael Gehrman in Hamburg, where he worked hard for five or six years and improved himself so far, that he created himself a reputation as a painter of portraits, landscapes, etc. Just over twenty years old he came to Copenhagen to attend the Royal Danish Academy of Art. In 1767 he was awarded its small gold medal and in 1771 the large gold medal. In 1772 he left Copenhagen to be away for eight years. Initially, he went to Rome where he stayed for four years together with other Danish artists, including Abildgaard. From Rome, he moved to Paris, at the time a center of portrait painting. In 1777 he moved on to Geneva, where he stayed for two years at the home of his friend Charles Bonnet in the company of other Danish artists, including etcher Clemens. In Geneva, Juel soon earned himself a reputation as an excellent artist and he painted many portraits. Through Bonnet, who had become a member of honour of the Danish academy, his reputation reached Denmark. After eight years of absence, he returned to Copenhagen in 1780 after a brief stay in Hamburg, where he met Klopstock. It was at his house, that he painted his well-known picture of "Messiadens Digter". Back in Copenhagen, he created himself a reputation as a painter of portraits for the royal house, nobility and the well-to-do. April 4, 1782, he was unanimously elected to be a member of the academy by Mandelberg, Weidenhaupt and Abildgaard. He became the director of the academy in 1795.