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Marten Pepijn (21 February 1575 – 1643) was a Flemish painter who was mainly known for his large-scale
history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
paintings and to a lesser extent for his smaller
genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...
scenes.Marten Pepijn
at the
Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...


Life

Marten Pepijn was born in
Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
as the son of WIllem Pepijn and Catharina van den Berg. His father was a buyer of used clothes and art dealer in Antwerp. It is not clear with whom Marten trained. In 1600 he was admitted as a master in the Antwerp
Guild of Saint Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was iden ...
as a 'wijnmeester', i.e. the son of a member. The 17th-century Flemish biographer
Cornelis de Bie Cornelis de Bie (10 February 1627 – ) was a Flemish '' rederijker'', poet, jurist and minor politician from Lier. He is the author of about 64 works, mostly comedies. He is known internationally today for his biographical sketches of Flemish ...
reported in his 1662
Het Gulden Cabinet or ''The Golden Cabinet of the Noble Liberal Art of Painting'' is a book by the 17th-century Flemish notary and ''Chamber of rhetoric, rederijker'' Cornelis de Bie. It was published in Antwerp. Written in the Dutch language, it contains artist ...
that Pepijn visited Italy but there is no evidence of such trip. He married on 1 December 1601 with Marie Huybrechts (her death debt was paid between 1647 and 1648) with whom he had five children: Willem, Adriaan, Marten, Martha and
Katharina Katharina is a feminine given name. It is a German form of Katherine. Notable people with this name include: Television and film * Katharina Bellowitsch, Austrian radio and TV presenter * Katharina Mückstein, Austrian film director *Katharina ...
.Catharina Pepijn
in'; Franz Jozef Peter van den Branden, ''Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche Schilder-school, Part 1''], Buschmann, 1883, p. 474-479
His daughter
Katharina Katharina is a feminine given name. It is a German form of Katherine. Notable people with this name include: Television and film * Katharina Bellowitsch, Austrian radio and TV presenter * Katharina Mückstein, Austrian film director *Katharina ...
(1619–1668) became a notable portrait painter in the style of Rubens and van Dyck. A son also became a painter but nothing his known about his work. Although Cornelis de Bie and the early Dutch artist biographer
Arnold Houbraken Arnold Houbraken (28 March 1660 – 14 October 1719) was a Dutch people, Dutch Painting, painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of Dutch Golden Age painters. Life Houbraken was sent first to learn ''threadt ...
wrote that there was rivalry between Pepijn and Rubens, this is unlikely since
Isabella Brant Isabella Brant (or Brandt; 1591 – 15 July 1626) was the first wife of the Flemish baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, who painted several portraits of her. Family She was the eldest daughter of Jan Brant, an important city official in Antw ...
, Rubens' first wife, was the godmother of his eldest daughter Martha.Ursula Härting. "Pepyn, Maarten." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 16 March 2015 The artist also had a close relationship with
Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (; ; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque painting, Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. The seventh child of ...
who painted his portrait. This painting ended up in the 19th century in the collection of the Dutch king William II. Between 1602 and 1628 Maarten Pepijn took on eight apprentices. In addition to his own children, his pupils were Hans Caes, Claes Fopsen, Hans Bosken (all 1602), Matthieu Matthiesen (1613), Matthys Goossens (1620/21), François Lemmens (1620/21), Joris Sebil (1620/21) and François van Boost (1625/26 ). Marten Pepijn suffered of ill health at the end of his life and died in Antwerp in 1643.


Work


History painting

Marten Pepijn was mainly known for his large religious compositions, and in particular, altarpieces. His style in these works is old-fashioned. The figures are generally depicted in stiff poses reminiscent of 16th-century sculpture. His work shows a distinctive influence by Ambrosius Francken the Elder, and as a result some of Francken's works have been attributed to Pepijn. This is for instance the case with the
grisaille Grisaille ( or ; , from ''gris'' 'grey') means in general any European painting that is painted in grey. History Giotto used grisaille in the lower registers of his frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua () and Robert Campin, Jan van Ey ...
'' Saints John and Matthew'' of 1602, which is the exterior of the right wing of a triptych painted by multiple Antwerp masters for the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp (
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp ( Dutch: ''Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen''; KMSKA) is a museum in Antwerp, Belgium, founded in 1810, that houses a collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings from the fourteenth to t ...
). This wing is now attributed to Ambrosius Francken the Elder by the
Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...
.Attributed to Ambrosius Francken (I), ''De evangelisten Johannes en Matthëus''
at the
Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...
Pepijn's work is further characterized by its excellent portraiture. This is demonstrated in the composition ''Saint Bernard and the Duke of Aquitaine'' (
Musée des beaux-arts de Valenciennes The musée des beaux-arts de Valenciennes is a municipal museum in the French town of Valenciennes. Its collections originated as the collection of the ''Académie valenciennoise de peinture et de sculpture''. It opened to the public for the fir ...
).


Genre paintings

There is still uncertainty as to whether a number of cabinet pictures that depict genre scenes, in particular of ball scenes at court, that are now attributed to Marten Pepijn are in fact by his hand. Some of these pictures bearing a monogram show a style, which is completely different from the large-scale, muscular religious works of Pepijn. These works are believed to have been produced in a period when Pepijn had close contact with the leading Antwerp painter
Frans Francken the Younger Frans Francken the Younger (1581, Antwerp – 6 May 1642, Antwerp) was a Southern Netherlands, Flemish painter and the best-known and most prolific member of the large Francken family of artists.
. These small-scale compositions contain little figures with stereotyped faces and soft contours. This style is found in his allegories of the ''Five Senses'' (private collection), '' The ball'' and the ''Ball at the court'' (both in the
Pushkin Museum The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (, abbreviated as , ''GMII'') is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. It is located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Sviatos ...
, Moscow). This last composition is signed and dated 1604 and depicts an elegant dance party. The influence of early works by Hieronymus Francken the Elder and Frans Francken the Younger, who were both known for their depictions of similar scenes, is apparent. The difference between the styles of these smaller compositions and his larger, religious works has yet to be satisfactorily explained. Some historians have suggested that possibly the smaller works are the work of a family member such as a son or brother of Pepijn.


References


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pepijn, Marten Flemish Baroque painters Flemish portrait painters Flemish history painters Flemish genre painters Painters from Antwerp 17th-century Flemish painters 1575 births 1643 deaths