FOLLOWERS OF RUBENS
Gaspar de Crayer (1584–1669), a pupil of Raphael van Coxie, modelled his art entirely on Rubens, and was equally successful as a portrait painter and in his religious compositions. Both phases of his art figure in the Louvre collection, which owns the St. Augustin in Ecstasy (No. 1953) and the life-size Equestrian Portrait of the Infante Ferdinand, Governor of the Netherlands (No. 1954). It was a portrait of the same sitter that led to Crayer’s appointment to the position of Painter to the Infante’s Court, accompanied by considerable emoluments.
Abraham van Diepenbeeck (1596–1675), Pieter van Mol (1599–1650), and Paul de Vos (1593–1676) need not here detain us. They are all capable followers of their master’s style, without any personal distinction. David Ryckaert (1612–1661), the third of four artists of the same family that bore this name, is outside the immediate circle of Rubens. His Interior of a Studio (No. 2137), which bears the signature “d. ryc. f. 1638,” is of peculiar interest as a document illustrating the milieu in which a Flemish artist of that period lived and worked.
Gerard Seghers (1591–1651), the painter of St. Francis in Ecstasy (No. 2140), although a pupil of Van Balen and Abraham Janssens, and indirectly, through Manfredi, of Caravaggio, must be counted among those who were influenced by the dominating personality of Rubens. An important pupil of Snyders was Jan Fyt (1611–1661), who excelled as an animal painter and colourist. He was at his best when he treated animals more in the manner of still life, but remained vastly inferior to his master when he tried to emulate his hunting scenes. Not all the five pictures catalogued under his name can be accepted as his own work. His great skill in rendering the varied textures of furs and feathers may be judged from Game in a Larder (No. 1993), which is unquestionably authentic although it does not bear the signature which testifies to his authorship of A Dog devouring Game (No. 1994).