Franciscus de Neve (II)

Franciscus de Neve (II) (also: Frans de (II) Neve, Fraciscus de Neuff, Francesco della Neve and nicknames: Bloosaerken and Blaserken) (1632, Antwerp – after 1704) was a Flemish Baroque painter and engraver.

Biography

He was the son of Franciscus de Neve (I), who was also a painter. Some biographers have confused father and son[1] and have placed the father incorrectly in Rome after 1660.[2]

Landscape With a Shepherdess Playing a Tambourine, engraving, c. 1660s

There is no information about his training. He was in Rome from 1660 to 1670 where he became a member of the Bentvueghels, a society of mostly Dutch and Flemish artists active in Rome. Here, he first lived with Karel van Mander III, with Hieronymus Galle in 1661-1662 and with Lodewijk Snaijers in 1665-1666.[3] According to Houbraken he received praise while in Rome for his ability to paint according to nature.[4]

He was probably in Naples in the years 1667 and 1668. While in Austria between the years 1669 and 1689 he painted altarpieces commissioned by the Archbishop of Salzburg and the Benedictine abbeys of Kremsmünster, Garsten and Admont. In Bavaria he painted altarpieces for the Archbishop of Passau during the years 1669 and 1689. He further spent time in what is now the Czech Republic from 1679 to 1681. Here he worked on a commission by Prince Karl Eusebius of Liechtenstein for an altarpiece in Moravia. He also acted as a restorer and trader for the Prince.

He was back in Antwerp from 1690 to 1704 and became master in the local Guild of Saint Luke in 1690-1691. He died after 1704.

He was the teacher of Johannes Drue.[3]

Work

Franciscus II represents in his altarpieces a style mixing Flemish, Venetian and Roman classical models derived from Rubens, Raphael, Titian, Tintoretto, Poussin and Pietro da Cortona. Notable is the Flemish surface realism, a colouring in differentiated brown and red tones, which evolved to more red colours toward the 1680s and changed to a mellow tone with more pink colours towards the end of his residence in Central Europe. The colour schemes of his oil paintings as well as his portrait art, which has mainly been preserved in copper engravings, were highly regarded by his contemporaries. A large number of small, unsigned landscapes has been handed down almost exclusively in engravings, which were made by Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi alla Pace in the 1660s in Rome. They found wide circulation and were already present in early collections.[1]

On various grounds and in particular its provenance, the art historian Brigitte Fassbinder has argued that the painting Massacre of the Innocents attributed to Rubens and dated 1611-12 is in fact by de Neve.[5]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 (German) Stillfried, Silvia (2008) Frans de Neve, ein flämischer Maler im 17. Jahrhundert auf Wanderschaft in Süd- und Mitteleuropa
  2. ↑ Franciscus de Neve (I) in the RKD
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Franciscus de Neve (II) in the RKD
  4. ↑ (Dutch) Franciscus de Neve Biography in De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718) by Arnold Houbraken, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature
  5. ↑ Brigitte Fassbinder, 'Rubens oder nicht Rubens, das ist hier die Frage', Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege, 2003, 57, 2
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