Gillis Backereel - Hero mourns the dead Leander

Gillis Backereel (1572 - before 1662) was a Flemish painter of

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

subjects. The artist was principally active in Antwerp where he produced various compositions for the local churches.Gillis Backereel
at the

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

Life

Gillis Backereel is believed to have been born in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

in 1572. There is no record of his training. He is known to have travelled to Italy where he resided in Rome. The dates are not known with certainty and estimates vary from prior to 1630, to the period between 1639 and 1643.Frans Jozef Peter Van den Branden, ''Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche schilderschool'', Antwerpen, 1883, pp. 660–661 He became a master in the Antwerp

Guild of St Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was identi ...

in 1630. He lived a relatively quiet and secluded life. In 1651 he suddenly employed four apprentices including Dominicus de Beselaer the Elder and Frans de Hase. The latter was hired without pay in return for his training. A certain Francis de Crayer was also his pupil. Gillis had reportedly a much older brother called Willem Backereel who enjoyed a good reputation as a landscape painter and left young for Rome where he died young. The early Dutch biographer

Arnold Houbraken Arnold Houbraken (28 March 1660 – 14 October 1719) was a Dutch painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of Dutch Golden Age painters. Life Houbraken was sent first to learn ''threadtwisting'' (Twyndraat) fr ...

reported that the Backereel family produced a number of artists and that

Joachim von Sandrart Joachim von Sandrart (12 May 1606 – 14 October 1688) was a German Baroque art-historian and painter, active in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. He is most significant for his collection of biographies of Dutch and German artists the ''Te ...

mentioned seven or eight Backereel family members that he knew personally. Today Gillis is one of only three Backereel family members documented. The other two are Gillis' brother Willem Backereel and

Jacques Backereel Jacques Backereel Jacques Backereel
at the Netherlands Institute for Art History Frans Jozef Pet ...

The date of Gillis' death is not recorded but is believed to have occurred between 1654 and 1662.

Work

Not many of Backereel's works have been preserved. They all depict religious and mythological subject matter. His ''Adoration of the Shepherds'' and ''Vision of St. Felix'' are in the

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (french: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, nl, Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België) are a group of art museums in Brussels, Belgium. They include six museums: the Oldmasters Muse ...

in Brussels and his ''Hero mourns the dead Leander'' in the

Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal do ...

in Vienna. Backereel provided the design for an

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...

Wenceslaus Hollar Wenceslaus Hollar (23 July 1607 – 25 March 1677) was a prolific and accomplished Bohemian graphic artist of the 17th century, who spent much of his life in England. He is known to German speakers as ; and to Czech speakers as . He is particu ...

representing

Bruno of Cologne Bruno of Cologne, O.Cart. (german: Bruno von Köln, it, Bruno di Colonia;c. 1030 – 6 October 1101), venerated as Saint Bruno, was the founder of the Carthusian Order. He personally founded the order's first two communities. He was a celebrate ...

published in 1649.Wenceslaus Hollar after Gillis Backereel, ''Bruno of Cologne''
at the Rijksmuseum

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Backereel, Gillis Flemish Baroque painters Flemish history painters 1572 births Year of death unknown Painters from Antwerp