Dominicus van der Smissen, or Van der Schmissen (28 April 1704, in

Altona Altona may refer to: Places Australia * Altona Beach, in Altona, Victoria, Australia * Altona Meadows, Victoria, Australia * Altona North, Victoria, Australia * Altona, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia ** Altona railway station ** Al ...

– 6 January 1760, in Altona) was a German painter, known primarily for portraits.

Life and work

He was born to a family of merchants who were originally from Brabant. As

Mennonite Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...

s, they fled religious persecution to live in

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; ; ; ; ; occasionally in English ''Sleswick-Holsatia'') is the Northern Germany, northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical Duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of S ...

, which was then part of Denmark. They eventually settled in Altona where his father, , founded one of the city's largest trading houses. He was a student of

Balthasar Denner Balthasar Denner (15 November 1685 – 14 April 1749) was a German painter, highly regarded as a portraitist. He painted mostly half-length and head-and-shoulders portraits and a few group portraits of families in interiors. Usually Denner con ...

. In 1730, he married Denner's sister, Catharina (1693–1778). His father-in-law, , was a Mennonite preacher. Their son, Jakob (1735–1813), also became a painter and later worked as a drawing professor in Altona. Very little else is known about his life; except that worked as an itinerant portrait painter. Around 1738, he was living in Altona and, the following two years, was a

court painter A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or princely family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Painters were the most common, but the cour ...

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...

. During the remainder of the 1740s, he was in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

and

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

. The 1750s found him in London. When he fell ill with

gout Gout ( ) is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterized by recurrent attacks of pain in a red, tender, hot, and Joint effusion, swollen joint, caused by the deposition of needle-like crystals of uric acid known as monosodium urate crysta ...

, he returned to Altona in hopes of being cured; but his condition worsened until he became paralyzed and soon died. As a

Freemason Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

, he was a member of several lodges, notably ' in Leipzig, of which he became a member in 1747. Most of his works were in private collections. A large number were in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

. Many of them can no longer be located.

Alfred Lichtwark Alfred Lichtwark (14 November 1852 – 13 January 1914) was a German art historian, museum curator, and art educator in Hamburg. He is one of the founders of museum education and the art education movement. Background and career Alfred Lic ...

: ''Das Bildnis in Hamburg'',Vol.I. Hamburg, 1898, pp.144–146 ().

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smissen, Dominicus van der 1704 births 1760 deaths 18th-century German painters 18th-century German male artists German portrait painters German Freemasons People from Altona, Hamburg

Life and work

References

Further reading

External links