b Pontormo, nr Empoli, 26 May 1494; d Florence, 31 Dec 1556). Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo  Related Paintings of Pontormo, Jacopo :. | Madonna and Child with St Anne and Other Saints | Leda and the Swan | The Expulsion from Earthly Paradise | Hermaphrodite Figure | Kicking Player |
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SIBERECHTS, Jan
Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1627-1703 Flemish painter, active in England. He was the son of the sculptor of the same name and became a master in the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp by 1648. He married in 1652 and moved to England sometime between 1672 and 1674.
Clarkson Frederick Stanfield
English Painter, 1793-1867 He is often wrongly referred to as William Clarkson Stanfield. The son of Mary Hoad and James Field Stanfield, an Irish actor and author, he was apprenticed to a heraldic coach painter at the age of 12, but in 1808 he abandoned this and went to sea in a collier. In 1812 he was press-ganged and spent two years on HMS Namur, the guard-ship at Sheerness. After being discharged as the result of an injury in 1814, he joined the merchant navy, sailing to China in the Indiaman Warley in 1815. Soon after his return in 1816 he missed his ship and became a scene painter, first at the Royalty Theatre, Stepney, and then at the Royal Coburg, Lambeth. There he was later joined by David Roberts, who became a lifelong friend, and in 1822 both men were employed as scene painters at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. During the next 12 years Stanfield established himself as the most talented scene painter of his day, causing a sensation with some of his huge moving dioramas such as the scenes of Venice in the pantomine Harlequin and Little Thumb (1831). Meanwhile he was building an equally impressive reputation as an easel painter. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1820 and continued to exhibit there regularly until his death. He was elected ARA in 1832 and RA in 1835.
Charles Leickert
22 September 1816, Brussels - 5 December 1907, Mainz was a Belgian painter of Dutch landscapes. Orphan Leickert first learned painting in The Hague under the supervision of landscape painters Bartholomeus van Hove, Wijnand Nuijen, and Andreas Schelfhout among many others. Leickert specialised in winter scenes, sometimes romanticising the sky in pale blues and bright pinks. He painted almost all his works in the Netherlands, from 1841-1848 in The Hague and from 1849-1883 in Amsterdam. In 1856, he became a member of the Royal Academy of Amsterdam. At the age of 71 he moved to Mainz, Germany where he later died in 1907.