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WILD FLOWERS, PLANTS, REPTILES,

AND INSECTS.

BROECK, ELIAS VAN, was an excellent painter of flowers, reptiles, and insects of every description; he had a nursery of frogs, toads, serpents, and lizards, in order that he might represent them truly from nature. His penciling is free, and his colouring vigorous and transparent. He was born in 1657, and died in 1711.

HEIL, LEONARD VAN, painted small pictures of flowers and insects, which he finished with great delicacy. He lived in the middle of the seventeenth century.

HEUSCH, ABRAHAM DE, was a landscape painter, but his great excellence was in the representation of wild plants, reptiles, and insects. Nothing can exceed the labour he bestowed on these objects; they rival the works of the most renowned masters for high finishing. His pictures of this class are of the greatest rarity. He was probably a relation of William and Jacob de Heusch, as he was born at Utrecht in 1650; he died at Leerdam in 1712.

HOEFNAGEL, GEORGE, painted plants and insects in a very spirited style. He is, however, better known by the engravings of the drawings of ancient monuments made by him in Italy. He was born in 1546, and died in 1600.

HULST, PETER VANDER, painted wild flowers and broad foliated plants, reptiles, and insects; his colouring is good, his penciling free and large, more in the Italian than Dutch style; he generally introduced a sun-flower in his pictures, which obtained for him the sobriquet of "Tournesol." He was born in 1652, and died in 1708. See the article Verhulst under this head.

WILD FLOWERS, PLANTS, REPTILES, AND INSECTS. 225

KESSELL, JAN VAN, painted flowers, birds, reptiles, and insects, with great accuracy and beauty. His pictures evince an extraordinary attachment to the study of natural history, particularly in the insect tribe, and of application in the delineation of the most minute objects. Worms and other creepers he combined in words, and signed some of his pictures in this manner. In flower painting he resembles Breughel. His talent was in request by some of the most eminent Flemish landscape painters, for the objects in which he excelled are frequently found ornamenting their pictures of the cabinet size. The small pictures, painted entirely by himself, are generally on copper, sometimes on tin. There were two artists of the same name, Jan, who painted alike, and writers have blended their history. See the enlarged edition of Bryan's "Dictionary of Painters and Engravers."

MAIR, LA, imitated Otho Marcellis in his subjects, but his colouring is brighter, and he painted on a light ground. Nothing of his history is recorded, excepting that he resided at Nimeguen in the eighteenth century. His pictures are generally attributed to Marcellis.

MARCELLIS, or MASSEUS, OTHо, painted wild plants, reptiles, and insects, in a manner almost peculiar to himself; certainly more in the Italian than Flemish style. Broadleaved plants, mushrooms, and toad-stools, with serpents, lizards, frogs, butterflies, and moths; a withered tree covered with ivy or moss, or a fragment of rock half hidden by fern, constitutes his general composition. He was born at Amsterdam in 1613, and died in 1673.

VANVITELLI, a scholar of Matthew Withoos, painted similar subjects to those of that master. He was probably of the family of the Witels, who italianized their name; several of them having settled at Rome for the purpose of studying architecture.

VERHULST, PETER, a native of Dort, and scholar of William Doudyns, imitated Otho Masseus, or Marcellis. This is, no doubt, the same as Peter Vander Hulst, called Tournesol; but most of the Dutch writers have quoted both names as belonging to different painters.

VROOMANS, NICOLAS, is eminent as a painter of all sorts of wild plants, briers, and parasitical creepers, among which he placed frogs, toads, serpents, moths, butterflies, mice,

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WILD FLOWERS, PLANTS, REPTILES, AND INSECTS.

birds' nests, and even spiders' webs; in all of which he is excellent in design, penciling, and colour. He was born in Holland about 1660, and died about 1719. His pictures are rare in England.

WITHOOS, MATTHEW. The pictures of this master deserve the amateur's attention; they are of a superior order in the landscape selection, the masterly freedom of penciling, and the harmonious tone of colouring. He was on intimate terms with Otho Marcellis, and travelled with him to Italy, where they both studied the same subjects, but their style of painting is widely different: Marcellis italianized, but Withoos retained his Dutch predilections for high finishing and fine transparent colouring, yet exhibiting no actual appearance of labour. The serpents and birds' nests are particularly beautiful, and among his plants and wild flowers, the scarlet poppy makes a conspicuous figure. He was born in 1627, and died in 1703.

MARINE PAINTERS.

ITALIAN SEAPORTS, RIVER VIEWS, ETC.

ARTEVELT, ANDREW VAN, born at Antwerp about 1570, painted storms at sea with great force and good effect. Vandyck painted his portrait when at Genoa in 1620.

ASSELYN, JAN. This very excellent landscape and cattle painter also excelled in representing seaports and river views; they cannot be too highly appreciated. See Analogists of Karel du Jardin.

BACKHUYSEN, LUDOLF. See under the head of Principal Masters.

BAUR, NICOLAS, an eminent modern Dutch painter of marine subjects, was born at Harlingen in 1767, and died there in 1820. There are two sea pieces by him in the Museum at Amsterdam. See also Landscapes by Moonlight,

and Winter Scenes.

BEECK, PETER VAN, a Dutch painter of sea pieces, whose works are not known in England, flourished about 1680. BELLEVOIS, resided at Hamburg, and died there in 1684. His style of painting seaports, storms at sea, and other marine subjects, indicates that he made the works of W. van de Velde and Backhuysen his models; he succeeded better in calms than in storms. His works are but little known in England, and there is no satisfactory account of him.

BEERSTRAETEN, JAN, sometimes painted sea pieces and seaports, to which Lingelbach added the figures. See Winter Scenes.

BERCHEM, NICHOLAS. The Italian seaports by Berchem are enriched with handsome buildings, fountains, obelisks, and statues; the figures are often of different nations, dis

tinguished by their costume, as Turks, Armenians, Africans, and Italians; ladies richly habited are prominent in the groups, and frequently followed by a negro slave bearing a large parasol; vessels are seen in the harbour; herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats are approaching for embarkation, and other incidents enliven the scene. In some of his seaport views a hawking party is introduced, consisting of ladies and gentlemen elegantly dressed and mounted on beautiful horses, followed by their dogs and sporting attendants; or a party assembled near to a grand mansion overlooking the bay, listening to the music of a guitar, and enjoying the marine prospect. All these scenes are remarkable for their richness and variety of objects, and the artist has paid the greatest attention to the details and the finish of the dresses and ornamental parts. Many of them remind the observer of his last master, Jan Baptist Weenix, and are generally said to be in his manner, by way of distinguishing them from the usual style of Berchem in his landscapes and cattle.

See under the heads of Principal Masters, Landscapes and Cattle, Winter Scenes, Battles, Huntings, &c., &c.

BLANKHOF, JAN TEUNISZ, a scholar of Cæsar van Everdingen, passed much of his time in Italy, and painted seaports and storms on the coast of the Mediterranean, in which he combines the minute attention to nature of the Dutch school with the grand scenery of Italy. He was born at Alkmaer in 1628, and died in 1670.

Bos, GASPAR VANDEN, painted storms and calms at sea, which have considerable merit in their truth of colouring and neat finishing. He was a native of Hoorn, and died at the age of thirty-two, in 1666.

CAPPELLE, JAN VANDER. See Analogists of W. van de Velde.

CASSEMBROODT, or CASEMBRODT, ABRAHAM, was a native of Holland, but practised chiefly at Messina. He painted landscapes and marine subjects, and was considered particularly excellent in storms at sea. He lived about the middle of the seventeenth century.

COOPSE, PETER. See Analogists of Backhuysen.

CUYP, ALBERT. The magnificent marine subjects by this painter are generally views on the Maes and in the vicinity

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