Room 208B
Northern Europe 1650-1750
A Lost Generation
Charles Emanuel Biset, Trictrac Players.
This room focuses on the generation that followed in the wake of Rembrandt and Rubens in Northern Europe. A generation that has been somewhat overlooked or quite simply not regarded as anything special. One of these forgotten artists is the Flemish painter and thinker Gérard de Lairesse. Through his theories on art he advocated art that turned its back on the everyday and the realistic, orienting itself towards an exalted art that took Antiquity as inspiration.
Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts, Trompe l'Oeil. An Open Cabinet of Curiosities with a Hercules Group, 1670.
Lairesse’s role models were Poussin (see Room 208A) and Le Brun. He directed his attention towards French rather than Dutch art.
The room also shows still lifes and statuettes from the same period.
The Flemish painter Gijsbrechts is represented here, as he was very much part of this forgotten generation. The Gallery’s large collection of his works was not rediscovered until the 1960s.
Franz Rösel von Rosenhof, Paradise before the Fall of Man, 1690 or 1695.
Franz Rösel von Rosenhof, The Earth after the Fall of Man, 1690.
