Peter (Sir) Lely
(1618 - 1680) |
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Portraiture, Secular Narratives Art Work
| Name: |
Peter (Sir) Lely |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Soest |
| Nationality: |
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| Birth: |
1618 |
| Death: |
1680 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Portraiture, Secular Narratives |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| The finest talent employed by the dukes of Lorraine during the 1620s, Jean Le Clerc was one of the earliest emulators of Caravaggism in France, whose work in turn affected the styles of Jacques Callot and Georges de La Tour.* Little is known about Le Clerc. His early career was spent in Italy. In Rome the works of Adam Elsheimer* influenced him. He was working in Carlo Saraceni's* studio by 1617 and moved with him to Venice in 1619. Both painters signed Doge Enrico Dandolo Inciting the Crusade (Venice, Doge's Palace). Le Clerc also met Johann Liss* in Venice in 1621, then returned to Nancy sometime between the spring of 1621 and April 1622. Duke Henry II named him Chevalier de Saint Marc in 1621, and from then on Le Clerc received numerous ducal and ecclesiastical commissions. Knowledge of Le Clerc's career is hampered by the paucity of surviving paintings since many churches in Nancy were destroyed in the revolutionary upheavals of 1789. That Le Clerc was successful in his own day is evidenced by the fact that he was more highly paid than Georges de La Tour in nearby Lunfiville. Le Clerc's chief extant work is The Concert (Schleissheim, Staatsgalerie Schloss), which formerly was in Munich, Alte Pinakothek (also known through a print by Le Clerc, an impression of which exists in Vienna, Albertina). The Concert is the earliest known surviving painting from the Lorraine which uses the device of candlelight. It employs this device brilliantly to both isolate key aspects of the narrative and unify the whole. Le Clerc's absorption of Saraceni's style as well as of Netherlandish Caravaggism is apparent in the painting. Le Clerc seems to have favored such large-scale, dramatically lit images. Those paintings cited as especially important are the Adoration of the Shepherds (Langres, Muse'e Saint-Didier) and the Banquet of Herodias (Chaumont, figlise Collegiate), in which the facial type and generalization of form (particularly of Herodias) anticipate La Tour. Described as the master of the sinister and brutal, Le Clerc nevertheless painted his subjects with decorum, casting a veil of refinement over his figures. |
Samples of Work
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