Cornelis van Poelenburgh

Portrait of Cornelius van Poelenburgh, from Cornelis de Bie's Het Gulden Cabinet, 1662.

Cornelis van Poelenburgh (1594 – 12 August 1667), 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, and his earliest signed paintings are from 1620. He traveled to Rome where he was influenced by Adam Elsheimer and became a founding member of the Bentvueghels. He counted a few cardinals under his patrons, and was called to England by Charles I of England, for whom he made small cabinet pieces. He returned to Utrecht where he later died just a few years after his old teacher Abraham Bloemaert. He painted mostly small landscapes with mythical or religious figures or passages, in a style that would later be evident in some of the works of Claude Lorraine.

His "most important and successful" pupils were Daniël Vertangen, Dirck van der Lisse, François Verwilt, and Jan van Haensbergen. Arnold Houbraken claimed that his best pupil was Joan vander Lis from Breda (not Dirk vander Lis from The Hague). Houbraken then mentioned Vertangen, Verwilt, Warnard van Rysen from Bommel, and Willem van Steenree, a nephew. The RKD also mentions Laurens Barata.

Works

• Mercury and Batto at the Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Expulsion from Paradise, Rijksmuseum.

The goddess Calypso saves Odysseus, Hallwyl Museum

There are also paintings by Cornelis Van Poelenburgh in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, Hungary.

References

• Cornelius van Poelenburgh on Artnet
• Works and literature at PubHist