Gaspar Roomer was a prominent Flemish

Flemish people

The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...

 merchant and art patron of the early 17th century. Born in Antwerp, he lived for at least four decades in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

. He became very wealthy from shipping enterprises, mainly to the Flemish and Dutch provinces and from banking. he owned Palazzo della Stella in Naples. He died in 1674, owning a collection of over 1,500 paintings. He was active in selling paintings from Southern Italy to the North, and vice versa, thus he was a conduit for the dispersion of styles. It was dispersed throughout Europe after his death.

His taste was both contemporary, and broad in style and across nationalities. He collected Caravaggist

Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

 paintings, landscapes, and genre paintings. Painters in his collections included(alphabetical):

Leonard Bramer, Giacinto Brandi

Giacinto Brandi

Giacinto Brandi was an Italian painter of the Baroque era, active mainly in Rome and Naples.Born in Poli, in the Lazio, he was trained in Rome in the studio of Alessandro Algardi, a noted sculptor, who noted that Brandi was more suited to painting. He joined the studio of Giovanni Giacomo Sementi...

, Giacomo Borgognone

Jacques Courtois

Jacques Courtois was a French painter.-Biography:He was born at Saint-Hippolyte, near Besançon. His father was a painter, and with him Jacques remained studying up to the age of fifteen...

, Jan van Boeckhorst, Gerard van der Bos, Jan Brueghel the Elder

Jan Brueghel the Elder

Jan Brueghel the Elder was a Flemish painter, son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and father of Jan Brueghel the Younger. Nicknamed "Velvet" Brueghel, "Flower" Brueghel, and "Paradise" Brueghel, of which the latter two were derived from his floral still lifes which were his favored subjects, while the...

, Paul Brill

Paul Brill

Paul Brill is a multiple Emmy Award-nominated composer, songwriter and producer based in Brooklyn, NY. He has scored dozens of feature films, television series and commercials, most notably including: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, The Devil Came on Horseback, The Trials of Darryl Hunt,...

, Caracciolo

Battistello Caracciolo

Giovanni Battista Caracciolo was an Italian artist and important Neapolitan follower of Caravaggio....

, Castiglione

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione was an Italian Baroque artist, painter, printmaker and draftsman, of the Genoese school. He is best known now for his elaborate engravings, and as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monotyping. He was known as Il Grechetto in Italy and in France as Le...

, Viviano Codazzi

Viviano Codazzi

Viviano Codazzi was an Italian painter of quadratura , architectural paintings, capricci and ruin pieces, and some vedute during the Baroque period. He was active in Naples and Rome...

, Jacques Duyvelant, Aniello Falcone

Aniello Falcone

Aniello Falcone was an Italian Baroque painter, active in Naples and noted for his painted depictions of battle scenes.-Biography:...

, Giordano

Luca Giordano

Luca Giordano was an Italian late Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples and Rome, Florence and Venice, before spending a decade in Spain....

, Guercino, David de Haen, Pieter van Laer

Pieter van Laer

Pieter van Laer was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre scenes, active for over a decade in Rome, where his nickname was Il Bamboccio...

, Jan Miel

Jan Miel

Jan Miel was a Flemish painter, active in Italy, emerging from the circle of genre painters influenced by Pieter van Laer and the so-called Bamboccianti painters. He was born in Beveren-Waas near Antwerp, but had traveled to Rome by 1636. Surprisingly, he briefly collaborating with Andrea Sacchi,...

, Cornelius van Poelenburgh

Cornelius van Poelenburgh

Cornelis van Poelenburgh, was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter.-Biography:Though his birthplace is unknown, a signed document survives in Utrecht where he is listed as six years old and the son of Simon van Poelenburch, a Catholic canon in Utrecht. He initially trained with Abraham Bloemaert,...

, Cornelis Schut

Cornelis Schut

Cornelis Schut was a Flemish Baroque painter, draughtsman and engraver active in Italy and Antwerp.-Biography:...

, Goffredo Wals, Bartolommeo Passante, Mattia Preti

Mattia Preti

Mattia Preti was an Italian Baroque artist who worked in Italy and Malta.- Biography :Born in the small town of Taverna in Calabria, Preti was sometimes called Il Cavalier Calabrese...

, Ribera, Rubens, Sacchi

Andrea Sacchi

Andrea Sacchi was an Italian painter of High Baroque Classicism, active in Rome. A generation of artists who shared his style of art include the painters Nicolas Poussin and Giovanni Battista Passeri, the sculptors Alessandro Algardi and François Duquesnoy, and the contemporary biographer Giovanni...

, Saraceni

Carlo Saraceni

Carlo Saraceni was an Italian early-Baroque painter, whose reputation as a "first-class painter of the second rank" was improved with the publication of a modern monograph in 1968....

, Massimo Stanzione

Massimo Stanzione

Massimo Stanzione was an Italian Baroque painter, mainly active in Naples.Massimo Stanzione was an Italian Baroque painter. Born in Naples in 1586, Massimo was greatly influenced by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, but what earned him the nickname of The Neapolitan Guido Reni was his...

, Van Dyck, Simon Vouet

Simon Vouet

Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France.-Life:...

, and Pieter de Witte.