Joos de Momper

1564 – 1634

Josse de Momper II was the leading member of an Antwerp family of artists and dealers. He was trained by his father, but he probably went to Italy in the 1580s, in which case he would have seen the Alps: he lived in Antwerp, but his works are invariably of great mountains, sometimes influenced by Bruegel, and they form a transition between Mannerist landscape and the realistic type developed in the Netherlands in the 17th century, e.g. by van Goyen. His pictures usually have blue mountains in the background, with a yellowish-green middle distance and a darker foreground peopled by small figures, often painted by Momper himself. Attribution is difficult because of the other members of the family who worked in a similar style. There are several works in Vaduz (Liechtenstein Collection) and four Seasons in Brunswick; others are in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Manchester (Whitworth) and Oxford.

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