Before the advent of photography, if you wanted a picture of something or someone, you had to draw it yourself -- or hire someone to do it for you. Artists (at least the good ones) could make a good living painting portraits, cityscapes, scenes of commoners, or still lifes; and also preserving for us the particulars of their lives, the styles of their clothes and houses and the details of their world. Here are some whose works have lived beyond their lifetimes.
a Dutch Golden Age painter and draughtsman, mostly producing small social genre paintings, ranging from elegant merry companies to guardroom scenes and (most numerous) groups of peasants, in a variety of styles which can be related to those of leading artists in these genres, but with personal aspects in the colouring and style.
a Flemish painter, engraver, draughtsman and tapestry designer who worked in various genres including history, portrait, battle and animal paintings. He was a pupil of Peter Paul Rubens and was one of the closest collaborators of Rubens in the 1630s. Following Rubens’ death in 1640 he became one of the most prolific and successful painters in Flanders.
a Flemish painter and draughtsman and a member of the famous Quellinus family of artists. He was one of the last prominent representatives of the great Flemish school of history and portrait painting in the 17th century. His work displays the classicizing influences of his father Erasmus Quellinus the Younger and Paolo Veronese.
an Austrian painter. He painted encampments, battles, skirmishes of cavalry, and hunting subjects, in all of which he appears rather as an imitator than as an original painter.
a German painter, draughtsman, and engraver. He painted primarily landscapes and portraits. He instructed his son August Querfurt who also became a painter. He died in Wolfenbüttel
a Flemish painter, copyist, engraver and etch artist. De Quertenmont made compositions of historical and religious scenes, and specialized in portrait painting. Very few paintings by his hand survive and he is now mainly known through his graphic work and drawings.
a French painter of Scottish extraction. In Paris he worked as a decorator and a designer of cartoons for tapestry, but it is as a portrait painter, both in oils and in delicately tinted pencil or red and black chalk, that he is chiefly remembered. Some portraits were engraved by Thomas de Leu and Michel Lasne, and in 1609 he drew a map of Paris for engravin...
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a French painter of Scottish extraction. In Paris he worked as a decorator and a designer of cartoons for tapestry, but it is as a portrait painter, both in oils and in delicately tinted pencil or red and black chalk, that he is chiefly remembered. Some portraits were engraved by Thomas de Leu and Michel Lasne, and in 1609 he drew a map of Paris for engraving by Pierre Vallet. He died in Paris.
a 16th-century French artist who worked in Scotland. Pierre's work is also mostly lost, excepting an Architectural Study after Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, preserved at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and another drawing, ...
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a 16th-century French artist who worked in Scotland. Pierre's work is also mostly lost, excepting an Architectural Study after Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, preserved at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and another drawing, a view called Chateau of Sées.
an American painter of historical and literary subjects. He has about 35 known canvases, most of which are based on Washington Irving's stories about Dutch New York, drawing inspiration from the Hudson Valley and from such English painters as William Hogarth, Isaac Cruikshank, James Gillray, Joseph Wright of Derby, and George Morland.
a French painter who also served as a valet de chambre for the king. A native of Orléans, in 1631 he married Charlotte Lerambert, the daughter of sculptor Louis Lerambert. Their daughter Marguerite married the sculptor Antoine Coysevox; their son Jérôme (sometimes called Hiérosme), baptized February 19, 1639, was also listed as a painter, though none of ...
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a French painter who also served as a valet de chambre for the king. A native of Orléans, in 1631 he married Charlotte Lerambert, the daughter of sculptor Louis Lerambert. Their daughter Marguerite married the sculptor Antoine Coysevox; their son Jérôme (sometimes called Hiérosme), baptized February 19, 1639, was also listed as a painter, though none of his works are known to have survived. Among Quillerier's pupils was Noël Coypel. He died in Paris.
