Jan Baptist Weenix

Jan Baptist Weenix: The river crossing

Jan Baptist Weenix (first name also Giovanni Battista; last name also Weenincks, Weenincx, Weeninx) (* 1621 in Amsterdam ; † around 1660 in Huis ter Mey , today Haarzuilens near Utrecht ) was a Dutch painter of the Golden Age .

life and work

Jan Baptist Weenix was born in Amsterdam as the son of the architect Johannes Weenix. He had three sisters, the youngest of whom, Lijsbeth, married the painter Barent Micker (1615–87). His brother, the painter Jan Micker (1598–1664), was possibly Jan Baptist Weenix's first teacher in Amsterdam. Evidence of his training with Abraham Bloemaert in Utrecht and later with Claes Cornelisz. Moeyaert in Amsterdam.

Jan Baptist Weenix married Justina de Hondecoeter in 1639, daughter of the landscape painter Gillis Claesz. de Hondecoeter . Justina's brothers Gijsbert Gillisz. de Hondecoeter (1604–1653) and Niclaes Gillisz. de Hondecoeter (1607–1642) were also landscape painters. Gijsbert Gillisz. Son Melchior de Hondecoeter was later also a student of Jan Baptist Weenix as his own son Jan Weenix .

Jan Baptist Weenix stayed in Rome from 1642 to 1647. Here he became a member of the Bentveughels , a community of Dutch and Flemish painters. Jan Baptist Weenix called himself Giovanni Battista Weenix in Italy, but received the nickname Klapper from his painter colleagues due to his illness-related speech impairment . Among his clients in Rome was Pope Innocent X. After his return to the Netherlands in 1649 he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Utrecht. From then on he specialized in Italian landscapes with folk scenes, views of the Campagna with ruins, as well as city and port views. In addition, he also created a few portraits and hunting still lifes. Jan Baptist Weenix died around 1660 at the Huis ter Mey moated castle near Utrecht, which no longer exists .

Works in public collections

• Hunters at the Ruins , 1648, The Cleveland Museum of Art , Cleveland
• Shepherd with flock between ancient ruins , The Ulster Museum , Belfast
• Landscape with a ford , regional gallery , Liberec
• Mediterranean Harbor Scene , 1652, National Gallery of Victoria , Melbourne
• Rest on the Flight into Egypt , 1647–50, Philadelphia Museum of Art , Philadelphia
• Coastal Scene with Ancient Ruins , 1649, The Wallace Collection , London
• Departure of an oriental army , around 1660, Louvre , Paris
• Seascape , Polish Naval Museum , Gdansk
• Portrait of a little girl as a shepherdess , around 1650, Musée de Picardie , Amiens
• The River Crossing , 1647, State Hermitage Museum , St. Petersburg
• Still life with a dead swan , around 1651, The Detroit Institute of Arts , Detroit
• Ancient ruins , Szépművészeti Múzeum , Budapest
• Dead Partridge , 1650–1652, Mauritshuis , The Hague
• Johan van Twist visits Visiapoer , around 1650, Rijksmuseum , Amsterdam
• Portrait of René Descartes , 1647–1649, Centraal Museum , Utrecht

gallery

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  Ancient ruins

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  Portrait of René Descartes

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  Dead partridge

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  Still life with a dead swan

literature

• Kenneth Clark : Landscape into art . Murray, London 1991 ISBN 0-7195-3610-3
• Christopher Brown: Dutch landscape: the early years . The National Gallery, London 1986 ISBN 0-947645-05-5
• Wolfgang Stechow: Dutch landscape painting of the seventeenth century . Hacker Art Books, New York 1980 ISBN 0-87817-268-8
• Hermann Arthur Lier:  Weenix, Giovanni Battista . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 41, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, pp. 417-419.
• Anke A. Van Wagenberg-Ter Hoeven, Jan Baptist Weenix, Jan Weenix: The Paintings . Waanders & De Kunst, Zwolle 2018 ISBN 978-94-6262-159-6

Web links

Commons : Jan Baptist Weenix  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Jan Baptist Weenix in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (English / Dutch)