293 



VANSOMER, PAUL. 



VANVITELLI, LUIGI. 



284 



VANSOMER PAUL, a Flemish portrait painter, was born at 

 Antwerp about 1 576. He was instructed by his brother Bernard Van- 

 Bomor, a good painter of conversation pieces and portraits, who had 

 studied in Italy, and lived at Amsterdam. Paul came to England 

 about the year 1 606, and met with great success here. He painted 

 James I., and many of the principal statesmen and noblemen of that 

 time. There is a portrait of James I. at Windsor, a view of Whitehall 

 in the background; and another at Hampton Court, with some 

 armour by his side, painted in 1615, a superior picture according to 

 Walpole. There is also at Hampton Court a portrait of the queen of 

 James I. with a horse and dogs, by Vansomer ; which is imitated, says 

 Walpole, in the tapestry at Houghton. The same writer mentions 

 likewise the following pictures by this painter : Lord Chancellor 

 Bacon, and hia brother Nicholas, at Gorhambury (there is a portrait of 

 Bacon by Vansomer, in the collection of Earl Cowper at Pansanger) ; 

 the Marquis of Hamilton with a white staff, at Hampton Court; the 

 lord chamberlain, William, earl of Pembroke, at St. James's, an 

 admirable portrait; and in Walpole's opinion, a whole length at 

 Chatsworth of the first earl of Devonshire in his robes, though ascribed 

 to Mytens, worthy of the pencil of Vandyck, and one of the finest 

 single figures he had ever seen. He mentions also a portrait of Anne 

 of Denmark, the queen of James I., with a prospect of the west eiid of 

 St. Paul's. 



Vansomer died in London, and was buried in St. Martin's in the 

 Fields, aa appears by the register : " Jan. 5, 1621. Paulus Vausomer, 

 oictor eximius, sepultus fuit in ecclesiil." 



VAN SWIETEN. [SWIETEN, GERARD VAN.] 



VANUCCHI. [SABTO, ANDREA DEL.] 



VANUCCI. '[PERUGINO, PIETRO.] 



VANUDEN, LUCAS, a distinguished Flemish landscape painter, 

 was born at Antwerp in 1595. He was instructed by his father, who 

 was also a landscape painter ; but not satisfied with the precepts of 

 art, he was constantly in the fields, from sunrise until sunset, sketch- 

 ing all the striking effects of nature, and he made valuable use of his 

 studies in his paintings. Rubens was a great admirer of the works of 

 Vanuden ; he employed him to paint skies and landscapes in many of 

 his pictures, which Vanuden adapted admirably to the style of 

 Rubens. Rubens also inserted figures in the pictures of Vanuden, 

 although he himself was a good figure-painter. 



His paintings are distinguished for their lightness of touch, clearness 

 and truth of colouring, and for pure skies and light easy foliage. 

 He painted large and small pictures, adapting his touch to the size 

 and nature of his composition, but his small pieces are more charac- 

 teristic of his style ; he was fond of extensive and distant scenes. 

 Vanudeu also etched some landscapes in a masterly manner, some 

 original designs, and some after Rubens and Titian. The date of his 

 death is not known, but it occurred after 1662. 



VAN UTRECHT, ADRIAN, one of the most distinguished of 

 the Flemish painters of still-life, was born at Antwerp in 1599. He 

 painted fruit, flowers, shell-fish, dead game, birds, &c., sometimes 

 together and sometimes separately, with such remarkable truth and 

 freedom of touch, and elegance of composition, that he received many 

 more orders than he could execute. The best of his pictures were 

 purchased by the king of Spain, and taken to that country : they are 

 very scarce, are rarely met with at auctions, and are sold for high 

 prices. He excelled in birds of all descriptions. He died rich, at 

 Antwerp, in 1651. With the exception of Snyders, Van Utrecht was 

 superior to all other painters in his line. 



VAN VEEN, or VAE'NIUS, OTHO, called also Ottovenius, a dis- 

 tinguished painter, was born at Leyden in 1550, according to Hou- 

 braken, or 1556, according to De Piles and others ; Van Mander says 

 he was forty-seven in 1604. His father was burgomaster of Leyden, 

 and his mother was of a distinguished family of Amsterdam. Van 

 Veen was instructed in letters by Lampsonius, private secretary to 

 the bishop of Liege, and was taught drawing by Isaac Claes or Nicolas, 

 and painting by Jost Van Wingen. His father sent him to Liege in 

 his fifteenth year, where he remained three years in the house of the 

 bishop, Cardinal Groosbeck, who then sent him to Rome with letters 

 to Cardinal Maduccio, by whom he was well received. In Rome Van 

 Veen studied with Federigo Zucchero ; and after spending eight years 

 in Italy, he visited Vienna, where the emperor wished to detain him 

 in his service : he visited also Munich and Cologne, where he likewise 

 had flattering offers to induce him to remain, but which his desire to 

 settle in his own country led him to decline. He settled at Brussels, 

 in the service of Alessandro Farnese, duke of Parma, and governor of 

 the Spanish Netherlands, of whom he painted a full length in armour, 

 which obtained him a great reputation. After the death of the Duke 

 of Parma, Van Veen removed to Antwerp, established an academy 

 there, and painted many pictures for its churches. Rubens attended 

 his academy. When the Archduke Albert of Austria, who succeeded 

 the Duke of Parma as governor, made his public entry into Antwerp, 

 Van Veen designed the triumphant arches which were erected upon 

 the occasion ; and the duke was so well satisfied with the devices, 

 that he invited Van Veen to Brussels, and appointed him master of 

 the mint there. He painted the portraits of Albert, and of his wife, 

 the infanta Isabella, daughter of Philip II. of Spain, which were sent 

 to James I. of England. Louis XIII. invited Van Veen to Paris, but 

 he declined to leave the archduke. 



Van Veen died at Brussels in 1634, aged seventy-eight, or, according 

 to Houbraken, in 1629. He left two daughters, Gertrude and Cornelia, 

 who both distinguished themselves in painting; Gertrude painted her 

 father's portrait, which has been engraved. 



There are several paintings by Van Veen at Antwerp ; and in the 

 cathedral of Leyden there is a Suppr of the Lord, which is considered 

 a good work. He excelled in invention and in chiaroscuro. His 

 imagination was very fertile : his designs are very numerous ; a list 

 of them, with the Life of Van Veen, was printed at Amsterdam in 

 1682, in a work entitled ' Acaddmie des Sciences et des Arts,' &c., by 

 Isaac Bullart. Amoni? them are emblems of Horace : ' Ziunebeelden 

 getrokken uit Horatius Flaccus,' &c., 103 plates, with text illustni- 

 tions in Latin, Dutch, and French. Many of the designs are ingenious 

 in their invention, and skilful in their composition, but the plates 

 are badly executed. He designed also emblems of divine and profane 

 love ; and thirty-two illustrations of the life of Thomas Aquinas. He 

 published also a history of the war of the Batavians under Claudius 

 Civilis against the Romans, from Tacitus, with forty illustrations ; and 

 the history of ' The Seven Twin Sons of Lara,' likewise with forty 

 illustrations, which were engraved by Antonio Tempesta. Felibien, 

 in his ' Entretiens sur les Vies des plus ceUebres Peintres,' has extracted 

 part of this work, relating the story and describing the subject of each 

 plate. In the Pinakothek at Munich there are six small allegorical 

 paintings of the triumph of the Roman church by Van Veen ; curious 

 designs, but extremely cold and blue in colouring. Van Veen was 

 very fond of allegorical and emblematical representations, and Rey- 

 nolds supposes that Rubens acquired his taste for the same subjects 

 from him. In the cathedral at Bruges there is a Nativity by Van 

 Veen, of which Reynolds observes : " Many parts of this picture 

 bring to mind the manner of Rubens, particularly the colouring of the 

 arm of one of the shepherds ; but in comparison of Rubens it is but 

 a lame performance, and would not bo worth mentioning here, but 

 from its being the work of a man who had the honour to be the master 

 of Rubens." 



VANVITELLI, LUIGI, a very distinguished architect, inasmuch 

 as he erected one of the most extensive edifices of the 18th century, in 

 which however it must be admitted the greatness of the opportunity 

 was not equalled by his talent. Though he may be comidered an 

 Italian, Luigi was of Flemish origin, his father being a native of 

 Utrecht, whose real name was Van Witel, afterwards Italianised by a 

 slight alteration. Gasparo, the elder Vanvitelli, was born in Utrecht 

 in 1647, and going to Italy for improvement in his profession as a 

 painter, fixed his residence at Naples, where he acquired considerable 

 repute for his ability in landscape and architectural subjects. He was 

 familiarly known as Vanvitelli degli Occhiali, on account of his always 

 wearing spectacles, without which he could hardly see ; yet he con- 

 tinued to paint after he had reached a very advanced age, and indeed 

 after he had submitted to an unsuccessful operation on one eye, the 

 sight of which he entirely lost. He died in 1736, at the age of 

 eighty-nine. 



His son Luigi was born at Naples in 1700, and began while a child 

 to display a strong inclination and considerable aptitude for art, in 

 which he was encouraged and instructed by his father. So great was 

 his proficiency, that at the age of twenty he was employed by Cardinal 

 Acquaviva to- paint some frescoes in the chapel of St. Cecilia ; and 

 he afterwards made some of the cartoons from celebrated pictures, 

 preparatory to their being copied on a larger scale, in mosaic, for St. 

 Peter's at Rome. About this period too he began to study architec- 

 ture under Filippo Ivara, one of the most noted in hia profession. 

 His first architectural work was the restoration of the Palazzo Albani 

 at Urbino, for the Cardinal di San Clemente ; besides which he erected 

 two churches in that city, S. Francesco and S. Domenico, works that 

 led to his obtaining the appointment of architect to St. Peter's at the 

 age of twenty-six. He was also associated with Niccolo Salvi in the 

 undertaking for conducting the water of the Vermicino to Rome. 

 About the same time there was a competition of all the most eminent 

 architects of the day for a facade for the church of S. Giovanni Late- 

 rano at Rome, to which both Salvi and Vanvitelli sent in designs ; 

 and, according to a memoir on the subject by the latter, their designs 

 were approved : but the first decision was set aside by the pope, uho 

 decided in favour of that by Galilei ; yet not so much, it is said, on 

 account of its architectural merit as for private reasons. However 

 neither Salvi nor Vanvitelli was overlooked. Salvi was employed 

 upon the fountain of TrevL Vanvitelli was sent to improve the 

 harbour and public works at Ancona, where he built the celebrated 

 lazaretto, a pentagonal structure, and repaired and altered some 

 churches and chapels. He was likewise occupied with many employ- 

 ments of a similar nature at Macerata, Perugia, 1'esaro, and Siena. 

 When at Milan, in 1745, he made a design for the facade of theDuorno, 

 in which he endeavoured to keep something of the character, if not of 

 the style, of the rest of the edifice ; but it was neither carried into 

 execution at the time, nor afterwards followed in the actual fa9ade 

 begun by Leopoldo Pollak and completed by Zanoja and Amati. At 

 Rome his most important work was the convent of S. Agostino ; but 

 he also executed there, for the Portuguese ambassador, a superb 

 chapel, which was conveyed to Portugal, and there re-erected in the 

 church of the Jesuits at Lisbon. 



Such was the reputation he had now obtained, that whon the king 



