Manner of Hendrick van Balen, 17th century Antwerp Flemish school - Christ Preaching to the Apostles

Manner of Hendrick van Balen, 17th century Antwerp Flemish school - Christ Preaching to the Apostles
Oil on canvas measures: 110 x 83 cm and framed measures 135 x 105 cm. (Antwerp, c. 1574/1575-1632). Flemish painter. Trained with Adam van Noort and Martin de Vos. In 1592-1593 he entered as a teacher in the Guild of Saint Luke in the city of Antwerp, and shortly afterward he traveled to Italy, where he remained until 1600-1602, visiting Rome and Venice. No works are known from his Italian period, although his early paintings show great relation to the compositions of Annibale Carracci and Palma the Younger. The Venetian influence can be seen in the clearly Mannerist positions of his figures, as well as in the female nudes. Despite creating, at the beginning of his career, altar paintings where the powerful Romanization inherited from Noort can be observed, Van Balen would evolve towards a greater colorful decorativeism closer to the influence of Anton van Dyck, who is suspected to have passed through his studio around 1609. Initially he collaborated with painters such as Abel Grimmer, for whose View of Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunste, Antwerp) he painted the figures. However, it is in cabinet painting that he achieved greatest success, with a decided emphasis on themes such as the four elements, the banquet of the gods and similar representations that allowed beautiful nudes to be placed in paradisiacal natural environments. A frequent collaborator of Jan Brueghel the Elder, there are numerous works carried out jointly by both artists, in which Brueghel provided the flower garlands and Van Balen the figures; one of the best examples of this pictorial association is Ceres with the Four Elements (Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan). Also artists such as Joost de Momper collaborated with Van Balen painting landscape backgrounds and works with Lucas van Uden, Jan Wildens and Frans Snyders are known. Other inspirational models for Van Balen were the Roman Taddeo Zuccaro, from whom he took rigid compositional schemes that he applied to his first cabinet works, such as The Marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne (Museum der Bildende Künsten, Leipzig). His way of composing varies around 1608 to more dynamic schemes and better arranged in the plane, with repoussoir figures and light contrasts between dark and illuminated areas being very common, noticeable in The Wedding of Thetis and Peleus (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden). His paintings have often been confused with those of Hans Rottenhammer, which is explained by the affinity of both to those of Palma the Younger. His works in the Prado Museum are paradigmatic of his most common creations: allegorical representations surrounded by festoons of fruits and flowers, of the four elements and the four seasons, some in collaboration with Brueghel. Among his paintings in the Prado, only one, The Adoration of the Kings, stands out for the particularity of its religious theme.so it must be related chronologically to the religious works that Van Balen produced when he was one of the most sought-after painters of altarpieces in Antwerp around 1615, with his best example in The Holy Trinity (St. James Cathedral, Antwerp). Provenance: private collection, Spain.

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