A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

1096. A HUNTING SCENE.

Jan Baptist Weenix (Dutch: 1621-1660).

Weenix, born at Amsterdam, was the son of an architect. His master in painting was Abraham Bloemaert. Early in life he married the daughter of Gilles de Hondecoeter; his nephew Melchior Hondecoeter (No. 202) was afterwards his pupil. In 1642 his desire to see Italy caused him to leave his young wife and to carry his palette and brushes beyond the Alps. He promised to be absent only four months. He remained in Italy four years. While there he studied the coast-scenes, the people, and the architecture; "the result of his observations being the stately scenes, half real, half conventional, of which good examples are to be found in the Wallace Collection." On his return to Holland, Weenix was largely employed, first at Amsterdam, and afterwards at Utrecht. In this country his name is chiefly associated with pictures of dead game, but subjects of this class—in which his son (238) also excelled—were only the predilection of his later years.