Benjamin Block or Blok (1631–1690) was a seventeenth-century German- Hungarian

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

who married the flower painter

Anna Katharina Block Anna Katharina Block (1642–1719) was a German Baroque flower painter. Biography She was born Anna Katharina Fischer in Nuremberg. According to Houbraken she was the daughter of the flower painter Johann Thomas Fischer who taught her to paint.< ...

. He is known for his portrait paintings.

Biography

Block was born into an artistic family in Lübeck;Benjamin von Block
in the RKD his father Daniel Blok and brothers Emanuel and Adolf were painters. In 1653 he was registered in

Halle, Belgium Halle (; french: Hal, ) is a city and municipality of Belgium, in the district (''arrondissement'') Halle-Vilvoorde of the province Flemish Brabant. It is located on the Brussels-Charleroi Canal and on the Flemish side of the language border that ...

, probably en route to Italy, and in 1655, through one of his brothers, who was a canon in Vienna at the time, he met

Ferenc Nádasdy III Ferenc () is a given name of Hungarian origin. It is a cognate of Francis, Francisco, Francesco, François, Frank and Franz. People with the name include: * Ferenc Batthyány, Hungarian magnate and general * Ferenc Berényi, Hungarian artist * F ...

who invited him to produce art in Hungary. He is registered in Hungary from 1656 to 1659. After working as a portrait painter in Siena, Florence and

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

, in 1664 Block crossed the alps back to his native Germany, and settled in Nuremberg, where he married the daughter of the flower painter

Johann Thomas Fischer Johann, typically a male given name, is the German form of ''Iohannes'', which is the Latin form of the Greek name ''Iōánnēs'' (), itself derived from Hebrew name ''Yochanan'' () in turn from its extended form (), meaning "Yahweh is Gracious" ...

(1603–1685), the flower painter

Anna Catharina Fischer Anna Katharina Block (1642–1719) was a German Baroque flower painter. Biography She was born Anna Katharina Fischer in Nuremberg. According to Houbraken she was the daughter of the flower painter Johann Thomas Fischer who taught her to paint.< ...

.Anna Katharina Block
in the RKD There he made portraits for the margraves of Ansbach and the Vienna court until 1670. He was knighted by

Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (Leopold Ignaz Joseph Balthasar Franz Felician; hu, I. Lipót; 9 June 1640 – 5 May 1705) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia. The second son of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, by his first wife, Maria An ...

in 1684. His wife remained a painter after her marriage, and along with their parents, this duo is mentioned in the artist biographies of Joachim von Sandrart and

Arnold Houbraken Arnold Houbraken (28 March 1660 – 14 October 1719) was a Dutch painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of Dutch Golden Age painters. Life Houbraken was sent first to learn ''threadtwisting'' (Twyndraat) fr ...

. He died in

Regensburg Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...

in 1690.

References

External links and sources

Fine Arts in Hungary
Hungarian painters 1631 births 1690 deaths Artists from Lübeck German Baroque painters 17th-century German painters {{Hungary-painter-stub