![Vincent Malo - The adoration of the Magi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Vincent_Malo_-_The_adoration_of_the_Magi.jpg)
Vincent Malo or Vincent Malo I (
Cambrai c. 1602 or 1606 –
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, 14 April 1644) was a Flemish painter who after training and working in
Antwerp was mainly active in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, where he was known, amongst others, as Vincenzo Malo, Vincenzo Malò and Vincenzio Malo.
[Vincent Malo (I)]
at the Netherlands Institute for Art History Vincent Malo painted
genre scenes
Genre art is the pictorial representation in any of various media of scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, work, and street scenes. Such representations (also called genre works, ...
as well as religious and mythological subjects and, occasionally, portraits.
Life
Due to a lack of reliable sources, the details of Vincent Malo's life are not well established. In 1662 the Flemish biographer Cornelis de Bie
Cornelis de Bie (10 February 1627 – ) was a Flemish ''rederijker'', poet, jurist and minor politician from Lier.
He is the author of about 64 works, mostly comedies. He is known internationally today for his biographical sketches of Flemish a ...
called him the "Great master Vincent Malò" and praised him for his skill in painting large- and small-scale works, in particular of nudes. De Bie did not specify any dates for Malo. The earliest biographer naming a Vincenzio Malo is Raffaello Soprani in his 1768 publication about artists in Genoa ''Le vite de' pittori, scultori, ed architetti genovesi''. This book is still our primary source of information on Malo.[Raffaello Soprani con note di Carlo Giuseppe Ratti]
''Le vite de' pittori, scultori, ed architetti genovesi''
Tomo I, Stamperia Casamara, Genova, 1768, pag. 332 e pag. 468-469
The date of birth of Vincent Malo is not known. In a document of 12 March 1637 the painter declares to be 31 years old, which would indicate he was born in 1606. The registers of the parish of San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome record that the painter died there on 14 April 1644 at about 42 years old which suggests a birth date around 1602.[
]
De Bie mentions that Malo was a pupil of the leading Flemish Baroque painter David Teniers the Elder
David Teniers the Elder (158229 July 1649), Flemish painter, was born at Antwerp.
Biography
Having received his first training in the painter's art from his brother Juliaen, he studied under Rubens in Antwerp, and subsequently under Elshei ...
while Soprani states that he studied in addition with Peter Paul Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradi ...
. The fact that certain of Malo's works show his knowledge of the drawings used in Rubens' workshop is regarded as evidence that Malo did spend time in Rubens' workshop. From his two masters he would have learned the Flemish Baroque style of painting.[ From 1623 to 1634 he was active in Antwerp. During this period he was a member of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke. He married in Antwerp and had a son also named Vincent in 1629. His son would later become a painter and be known as Vincent Malo II.][Vincent Malo at the ]Biographie Nationale de Belgique
The ''Biographie nationale de Belgique'' (French; "National Biography of Belgium") is a biographical dictionary of Belgium. It was published by the Royal Academy of Belgium in 44 volumes between 1866 and 1986. A continuation series, entitled the ' ...
, Volume 13, p. 251-253
He moved to Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...
in Italy after 1634. He lived and collaborated with fellow Flemish painter Cornelis de Wael
Cornelis de Wael ( Antwerp, 1592 – Rome, 1667) was a Flemish painter, engraver and merchant who was primarily active in Genoa in Italy. He is known for his genre paintings, battle scenes, history paintings and still lifes. Through his ar ...
, who played a pivotal role in the Flemish artistic community in Genoa. Genoa was at the time an attractive destination for artists since the competition between artists there was less intense than in the leading cultural centres Rome, Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...
and Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
. Genoa was a thriving port city where a large number of potential patrons and collectors lived.[Anversa & Genova: een hoogtepunt in de barokschilderkunst]
In Genoa Malo completed various commissions for local churches and palaces.[
Malo later travelled to Florence with his family and resided and worked there for a while. He then travelled to Rome around 1642. He died in Rome on 14 April 1644.][ His family returned to Antwerp and in 1652 his son was admitted in the local Guild of St. Luke as the son of a master.][
Flups Mertens, Jakes Clasens and the still life painter Isaac Wigans were his pupils in Antwerp and Antonio Maria Vassallo was his pupil in Genoa.]
Mix-up of Vincent Malo with other artists
The art historian Timon Henricus Fokker suggested in a publication of 1931 that Vincenzo Malo should be identified with the Vincenzo Armanno described in Passeri
A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 5000 ...
's book ''Vite de pittori, scultori ed architetti: che anno lavorato in Roma, morti dal 1641 fino al 1673''. The art historian Didier Bodart argued in a 1970 article against this identification. He expressed the view that the Vincenzo Armanno described by Passeri should rather be identified with the Dutch painter Herman van Swanevelt
Herman van Swanevelt (1603 – 1655) was a Dutch painter and etcher from the Baroque era.
Life
Herman was born in Woerden to a family of thriving artisans whose ancestors included the famous painter Lucas van Leyden. The identity of Swaneve ...
. Bodart compared the biography of Vincenzo Armanno by Passeri with that of Vincent Malo by Soprani. He concluded that the lives of the two persons described in these biographies are completely dissimilar and that Armanno and Malo were clearly two different persons. Moreover, some facts recorded about van Swanevelt's life such as his troubles with the Holy Office in Rome and his specialisation as a landscape painter made him the more likely candidate for identification with Vincenzo Armanno. The matter of the identity of Vincenzo Armanno has still not been resolved with certainty.
Vincent Malo has also been confused with the Flemish painter Vincent Adriaenssen who worked for a significant time in Rome. In fact, both painters called Malo (Vincent Malo I and Vincent Malo II) had died before Vincent Adriaenssen. Today it is assumed that Malo mainly made religious and genre works and Adriaenssen painted battle scenes.
Works
Vincent Malo was a painter of genre scenes
Genre art is the pictorial representation in any of various media of scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, work, and street scenes. Such representations (also called genre works, ...
and of religious and mythological subjects and occasional portraits.[ While his early works retain ]Mannerist
Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Ita ...
traits, his mature works showed a Baroque style close to that of Rubens and van Dyck.[RUTTERI, Maria Grazia, Vincenzo Malo dal manierismo al barocco, 1966]
He collaborated with other Antwerp painters. He added figures in the land- and seascapes of Andries van Eertvelt and Gijsbrecht Leytens and also collaborated with Cornelis de Wael during his stay in Genoa.[
Works of Vincenzo Malo are held in the collections of the ]Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti
The Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti is a tertiary academy of fine arts located in Genoa, Italy. It also houses a museum (Museo dell'Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti), which includes works of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Giuseppe Abbati, Anto ...
(Genoa), Palazzo Bianco
Palazzo Bianco ( en, White Palace) is one of the main buildings of the center of Genoa, Italy. It is situated at 11, via Garibaldi (known at one time as ''Strada Nuova'', and before that, ''Via Aurea'').
It contains the Gallery of the White Pala ...
(Genoa), Palazzo Colonna
The Palazzo Colonna () is a palatial block of buildings in central Rome, Italy, at the base of the Quirinal Hill, and adjacent to the church of Santi Apostoli. It is built in part over the ruins of an old Roman serapeum, and it has belonged to ...
(Rome), Galleria nazionale di Parma (Parma), Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums ( it, Musei Vaticani; la, Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of ...
(Rome), Pinacoteca di Brera
The Pinacoteca di Brera ("Brera Art Gallery") is the main public gallery for paintings in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings from the 13th to the 20th century, an outgrowth of the cultural program of ...
(Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
), the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
), the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Art Gallery ( Indianapolis). The Royal Collection holds three religious paintings attributed to Malo but these attributions are not firm.Vincent Malo paintings
at the Royal Collection
References
Further reading
*s.n. 1997: 'Fiamminghi a Genova 1602-1656', in: BARNES, S. e.a. 1997: Van Dyck a Genova. Grande pittura e collezionismo, tentoonstellingscatalogus Genua, Palazzo Ducale, Milaan, pp. 352–357.
*BALIS, A. 1993: ‘"Fatto da un mio discepolo": Rubens's Studio Practice Reviewed', in: Rubens and his workshop: the flight of Lot and his family from Sodom, tentoonstellingscatalogus, Tokio, p. 101.
*MARZIA, C.G., MASSA, P. (e.a.) 2003: Anversa & Genova. Een hoogtepunt in de barokschilderkunst, catalogue Antwerpen, Gent.
*THIEME, U.; BECKER, F. 1929: Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Deel 23, Leipzig, p. 598.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Malo, Vincent
French Baroque painters
Painters from Antwerp
Flemish Baroque painters
1644 deaths
People from Cambrai
Year of birth unknown