Josse de Momper (in many records also Joos de Momper) was a Belgian painter and art dealer from Antwerp. His father Bartholomäus de Momper, who practiced the same professions, was his instructor - also grandfather and great-grandfather were painters. At just 17, Josse became a member of the Antwerp Guild of Antwerp, the Saint-Luke Guild, at the age of 37 becoming the Dean and CEO. He had ten children with his wife Elisabeth Gobyn, and three of them followed his father's profession. The most famous of the sons was Philippe de Momper, who trained Josse.
Josse was much appreciated among his artistic contemporaries, and he also trained many pupils in his studio, such as the painter
Louis de Caullery . Around 1580 there are records of a trip to Italy de Mompers, frescoes in the San Vitale church in Rome should also come from him and Italian influences show in his pictures. His style of painting landscapes is referred to as Flemish coloring, including a red-brown foreground, a yellow-green center and a gray-blue painted back part. These shades show a dominance of the warm tonalities in the foreground and the cold in the background. Josse worked several times with greats such as
Jan Brueghel the Elder ,
Jan Brueghel the Younger, or
Peeter Snayers , known for battlefield
scenes . Here, de Momper should have painted the landscapes and the others the staffage. The landscape motifs included fantasy landscapes, as well as realistic ones. The main motive of de Mompers are certainly the landscapes. In his earlier works of art, he was strongly inspired by the Dutch Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the also Dutch
Paul Bril . These works mainly depict world landscapes in Mannerist style, later his themes are more diverse and he managed hills, valleys and winter landscapes. However, the focus remains on mountain and lake landscapes. Financially de Momper should not have had it easy, but his reputation should have led him to even Isabella of Spain, archduchess and governor of the Spanish Netherlands, wrote a letter of apology for his debts and sent to the Municipality of Antwerp.
But De Momper made the transition from mannerism to naturalism and became one of the best-known Dutch landscape painters. 500 of his works are still preserved, of which very few are signed and dated (this often led to misunderstandings and false attributions). Among the most famous pictures are "mountain landscape", "winter landscape", "Alpine landscape", "Tower of Babel" and "mountain landscape with travelers on a path". The latter was created in collaboration with Jan Brueghel the Elder. Many of the collaborations with Brueghel today have a value of tens of thousands of euros. His art can be found in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig, the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
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