Gaspar Peeter Verbruggen or Gasparo Pedro Verbruggen (baptized on 11 April 1664 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,

– buried on 14 March 1730 in Antwerp) was a Flemish still life painter who is principally known for his decorative still lifes with flowers and fruit. He collaborated with figure artists on compositions which combined figures with a still life element. He was active in Antwerp and The Hague.Gaspar Peeter Verbruggen
at the Netherlands Institute for Art History

Life

Gaspar Peeter Verbruggen was born in Antwerp as the son of

Gaspar Peeter Verbruggen the Elder Gaspar Peeter Verbruggen the Elder (Antwerp, 1635 – Antwerp, 16 April 1681) was a Flemish painter of flowers and garland paintings.Guild of Saint 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 ide ...

of Antwerp at age 13.Frans Jozef Peter Van den Branden, ''Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche schilderschool'', Antwerpen, 1883, p. 1139-1141 Verbruggen became the deacon of the Guild in the Guild year 1691/1692. Ph. Rombouts and Th. van Lerius, De liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche sint Lucasgilde
Volume 2, Antwerp, 1864, p. 553-4, on

Google books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

In 1694 he gave one of his works called ''Flower garland surrounding a statue of Apollo'' ( Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp) to the Guild in thanks for accepting his pupils Balthasar Hyacinth Verbruggen and

Jacob Melchior van Herck Jacob Melchior van Herck or Jacobus Melchior van Herck (active in Antwerp 1691–1735) was a Flemish still life painter active in Antwerp. He is principally known for his flower and fruit still lifes. He collaborated with figure painters in the c ...

without paying a fee. Verbruggen was successful and lived in a house on the high-end Meir. He married on 22 June 1700 with Dymphna van der Voort. His wife died not long after the union and was buried on 18 September 1702. The artist lived above his means and was forced in 1703 to sell all his paintings. The revenue from the sale was not sufficient to cover all his debts. He decided to leave Flanders for the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...

in 1705. He established himself in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

where he received many commissions for the decoration of prominent residences. He joined the Guild of Saint Luke of The Hague in 1708. Despite his commercial success his expenses remained higher than his income. He returned as a poor man to Antwerp. His old art friends arranged for him to take the job of 'knaap' (boy) at the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke, a position he held from 1723 to the time of his death. He was buried on 14 March 1730 in Antwerp's Cathedral. His pupils included his half-brother Balthasar Hyacinth Verbruggen (son of his father and his second wife Sara Catharina Raeps),

(who was his brother-in-law, half-brother or step brother), Frans d'Olivero, Peter Frans Casteels and Gillis Vinck.

Work

General

Verbruggen was a specialist still life painter. He practised many of the sub-genres of still life such as fruit still lifes, flower pieces and garland paintings. In its use of broad, impasto brush strokes, the style of his work reflects developments initiated by Italian artists

Mario Nuzzi Mario Nuzzi, who went by the pseudonym, Mario de' Fiori (19 January 1603, in Rome – 14 November 1673, in Rome) was an Italian painter in the Baroque style. His paintings are all based around floral arrangements; hence the name Fiori (flowers). ...

and Michele Pace del Campidoglio. The work of the French painter

Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (12 January 1636 – 20 February 1699) was a Franco-Flemish painter who specialised in flower pieces. He was attached to the Gobelins tapestry workshops and the Beauvais tapestry workshops, too, where he produced cartoons ...

was also an influence. His works represent a development towards a more decorative style in late 17th century Flemish still life painting. He placed the flower bouquets in his compositions in large stone vases or arranged them in the form of garlands around these vases or garden ornaments. The vases were often placed in outdoor settings with figures. His style was followed by Jan Baptist Bosschaert, Simon Hardimé, Pieter Hardimé and

Pieter Casteels III Pieter Casteels III (1684–1749) was a Flemish painter and engraver mainly known for his flower pieces, game pieces and bird scenes.

. His large vertical paintings with their tripartite division had an influence on

Jan Baptist Bosschaert Jan Baptist Bosschaert or Jan Baptist Bosschaert the Younger (baptized on 17 December 1667 in Antwerp − 1746 in Antwerp) was a Flemish still life painter who is principally known for his decorative still lifes with flowers. He collaborated wi ...

Collaborations

Verbruggen collaborated with various specialist painters including the figure painters

Peter Ykens Peter Ykens (1648 – 1695), was a Flemish painter mainly known for his history paintings and portraits. He regularly collaborated with specialist still painters and landscape artists for whose works he provided the staffage.< ...

and Jacob Leyssens in Antwerp and Matheus Terwesten in the Hague.Jacob Leyssens
in Van der Aa e.a., Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden The Antwerp painter Peeter-Frans Bailliu painted the vases, figures and grisailles in some of his compositions. The collaborators on his paintings have not always been identified with certainty. For instance, the collaborator in the painting ''Margaret Lemon as Erminia'' who painted the female figure after an original by Anthony van Dyck was believed to be Adriaen Hanneman but that attribution is no longer believed to be accurate. Verbruggen collaborated on a number of compositions in the genre of 'garland paintings'. Garland paintings are a type of still life invented in early 17th century Antwerp by

Jan Brueghel the Elder Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; 1568 – 13 January 1625) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He was the son of the eminent Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. A close friend and frequent collaborato ...

and subsequently practised by leading Flemish still life painters, and in particular Daniel Seghers. Paintings in this genre typically show a flower or, less frequently, fruit garland around a devotional image or portrait. In the later development of the genre, the devotional image was replaced by other subjects such as portraits, mythological subjects and allegorical scenes.Susan Merriam, ''Seventeenth-Century Flemish Garland Paintings. Still Life, Vision and the Devotional Image'', Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2012David Freedberg, "The Origins and Rise of the Flemish Madonnas in Flower Garlands, Decoration and Devotion", ''Münchener Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst'', xxxii, 1981, pp. 115–150. Garland paintings were usually collaborations between a still life and a figure painter. Sometimes the still life painter would paint the garland and only much later another painter would add the figures or grisaille in the centre. The centre in some of the garland paintings that have been preserved were never filled by an image. The cartouche in the center of Verbruggen's garland paintings was usually filled with non-religious imagery such as portraits and mythological scenes. The ''Flower garland surrounding a vase of flowers'' (At the Instituut Collectie Nederland) is an example of a garland painting by Verbruggen. It is unusual because the image in the centre of the flower garland is a vase of flowers, rather than a scene with figures or a grisaille. X-ray investigation and archival research have revealed that originally there was a figure of a woman in the centre, which was painted over and replaced by the flower vase in the early 20th century. The painter of the flower vase selected flowers in the original flower garland as the basis for the flower bouquet thus creating a harmony between the garland and the flower bouquet.Abbie Vandivere, ''Changes of Identity in "Garland of Flowers and Vase" by Gaspar Peeter Verbruggen the Younger'', Oud Holland, Vol. 122, No. 2/3 (2009), pp. 164-180

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Verbruggen, Gaspar Peeter Flemish Baroque painters Flemish still life painters 17th-century Flemish painters 18th-century Flemish painters Painters from Antwerp Painters from The Hague Flower artists 1664 births 1730 deaths