Balthasar van den Bossche (1681–1715) was a late Flemish Baroque painter who specialized in histories

History painting

History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...

, genre

Genre painting

Genre works, also called genre scenes or genre views, are pictorial representations in any of various media that represent scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or...

 and picture gallery interiors.

Life

Balthasar van den Bossche studied under the Flemish

Flemish

Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium....

 genre painter Gerard Thomas

Gerard Thomas

Gerard Thomas was a late Flemish Baroque painter who specialized in studio and picture gallery interiors. He became a master in Antwerp's Guild of St. Luke in 1688–89, and was dean twice...

 (Antwerp 1663-1720), and was very much influenced by his teacher's genre style of interior painting, especially his depictions of well-furnished bourgeois rooms and conversation pieces, complete with detailed settings that helped to display his patrons' gentility. Symbols of politesse, artistic sentiment, fashion and wealth were all attributes intended to show that they possessed all the necessary material as well as social graces. Van den Bossche established a reputation for just such works, and was fascinated by the presentation of studio interiors and collectors' galleries, with the figures emblematic of the arts, as exemplified by the present pictures. Descamps recorded in 1763 that the figures in his paintings were more elegant than those of Thomas.

Van den Bossche was accepted into the Antwerp Guild in 1697 before travelling to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 where for some time he had a studio in Paris. He returned to Antwerp in 1700. There he worked for an art dealer, and continued to paint with notable success, receiving patronage from important figures such as the Duke of Marlborough

Duke of Marlborough

Duke of Marlborough , is a hereditary title in the Peerage of England. The first holder of the title was John Churchill , the noted English general, and indeed an unqualified reference to the Duke of Marlborough in a historical text will almost certainly refer to him.-History:The dukedom was...

 in Antwerp after the Battle of Ramillies

Battle of Ramillies

The Battle of Ramillies , fought on 23 May 1706, was a major engagement of the War of the Spanish Succession. For the Grand Alliance – Austria, England, and the Dutch Republic – the battle had followed an indecisive campaign against the Bourbon armies of King Louis XIV of France in 1705...

 in 1706. In 1774 Sir Joshua Reynolds referred to van den Bossche when writing about the French painter, Antoine Coypel

Antoine Coypel

Antoine Coypel was a history painter, the more famous son of the French painter Noël Coypel.Antoine studied under his father, with whom he spent four years at Rome. At the age of eighteen he was admitted into the Académie de peinture et de sculpture, of which he became professor and rector in...

 (1661–1722): 'The modern affectation of grace in his works, as well as in those of Bosch (sic) and Watteau, may be said to be separated by a very thin partition from the more simple and pure grace of Correggio and Parmegiano'.

Sadly the artist's glittering career was cut short by his untimely death in 1715. He is said to have died by striking his head on a window while instructing his pupils.

Public collections

Balthasar van den Bossche is represented in the following collections: Hermitage

Hermitage Museum

The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...

, St. Petersburg, amongst others.

Sources

• Filipczak, Z. Z. (1987). Picturing art in Antwerp, 1550-1700. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691040478