Bonaventura Peeters

Bonaventura Peeters the Elder ( * July 23, 1614 in Antwerp, † July 25, 1652 in Hoboken, near Antwerp ) was a Dutch marine painter, etcher, illustrator and poet of the Baroque.

Life

About his early life little is known, but he grew up in a family of prominent artists. Peeters His brothers Gillis Peeters (1612-1653), who worked with him on Jan Peeters learned painting from his father, master of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke from 1607 to 1608. ( 1624-1677 ) and his sister Catharina Peeters ( 1615-1676 ) were also marine painter. His eponymous nephew, son of Gillis Peeters, became known as Bonaventura Peeters the Younger.

Work

Peeters was dedicated to the Marine Painting wide sea voyages that might have led him to Turkey. More famous pictures of his port of Arkhangelsk ( 1644) suggest that he spent his early years at sea. Other images ( Orient, America ) can, however, close to the influence of the early exoticism, ie a free design of the topics according to his imagination.

Peeters described with fondness the turbulent or stormy, busy sea of ships, but also coastal landscapes with figures. They are also called Zeekens (small seascapes ). This specialization was typical of the period of this painting, which reached them in the Dutch school of the 17th century, the Dutch Golden Age. Excellent older marine painters were, Jan Porcellis (before 1584-1632 ), Jan van Goyen ( 1596-1656 ), Willem van de Velde the Elder ( 1611-1693 ) or Backhuysen Ludolf ( 1630-1708 ), of which he was considered the best.

1634 he has also been added to the Guild of St. Luke. Until the early 1640s, he remained active in his native city. After persecution by the Jesuits, on which he had written a satirical poem, he had to leave Antwerp and moved to the nearby Hoboken. He died there at the age of 38 years.

Ship with mast broke in rough seas, mid- 17th century, Oil on wood, 40 × 71 cm ( National Maritime Museum, Greenwich)

Ships on the nearby pier, 1st half of 17th century, oil on panel, 36.5 x 69 cm ( Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

Port in the Orient ( Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels)

In his short creative period he created quite a large number of paintings. So Gustav Parthey recorded in his German images Hall, Vol 2, Nicolai 1864, approximately 60 paintings in the galleries of Berlin, Dresden, Kassel, Antwerp, Braunschweig and Vienna ( Österreichische Galerie Belvedere). Today, plants are among others at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich / London, in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels and in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum.