Benjamin Block or Blok (1631–1690) was a seventeenth-century

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

- Hungarian Baroque

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

who married the flower painter

Anna Katharina Block Anna Katharina Block (1642–1719) was a German Baroque flower painter. Biography She was born Anna Katharina Fischer in Nuremberg. According to Houbraken she was the daughter of the flower painter Johann Thomas Fischer who taught her to paint.< ...

. He is known for his portrait paintings.

Biography

Block was born into an artistic family in

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

;Benjamin von Block
in the RKD his father Daniel Blok and brothers Emanuel and Adolf were painters. In 1653 he was registered in

Halle, Belgium Halle (; french: Hal, ) is a city and municipality of Belgium, in the district (''arrondissement'') Halle-Vilvoorde of the province Flemish Brabant. It is located on the Brussels-Charleroi Canal and on the Flemish side of the language border tha ...

, probably en route to Italy, and in 1655, through one of his brothers, who was a canon in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

at the time, he met

Ferenc Nádasdy III Ferenc () is a given name of Hungarian origin. It is a cognate of Francis, Francisco, Francesco, François, Frank and Franz. People with the name include: * Ferenc Batthyány, Hungarian magnate and general * Ferenc Berényi, Hungarian artist * F ...

who invited him to produce art in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...

. He is registered in Hungary from 1656 to 1659. After working as a portrait painter in

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centur ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

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 ...

, in 1664 Block crossed the alps back to his native

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

, and settled in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

, where he married the daughter of the flower painter Johann Thomas Fischer (1603–1685), the flower painter Anna Catharina Fischer.Anna Katharina Block
in the RKD There he made portraits for the margraves of Ansbach and the

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

court until 1670. He was knighted by Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor in 1684. His wife remained a painter after her marriage, and along with their parents, this duo is mentioned in the artist biographies of Joachim von Sandrart and Arnold Houbraken. He died in Regensburg in 1690.

References

External links and sources

Fine Arts in Hungary
Hungarian painters 1631 births 1690 deaths Artists from Lübeck German Baroque painters 17th-century German painters {{Hungary-painter-stub