Giuseppe Macpherson - Portrait of Matthieu van Plattenberg

Matthieu or Matthijs van Plattenberg, known in France as Matthieu de Plattemontagne, Matthieu de Platte Montagne and Matthieu Montaigne (1607 or 1608 – 19 September 1660) was a

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium ...

Baroque painter Baroque painting is the painting associated with the Baroque cultural movement. The movement is often identified with Absolutism, the Counter Reformation and Catholic Revival,etcher Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

and engraver who specialized in marine paintings and

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the p ...

. He spent most of his career abroad, first in Italy and then in France where he played an important role in the development of the painting of stormy seascapes.

Life

Matthieu van Plattenberg was born in Antwerp in 1607 or 1608. He was likely a pupil of the marine painter

Andries van Eertvelt Andries van Eertvelt (1590 – 1652), was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and engraver who was one of the first Flemish artists to specialize in marine art. Several of his pupils also became prominent marine artists.Matthiijs van Plattenberg
at the

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center ...

He travelled together with van Eertvelt to Italy, where he worked in Florence.Matthieu van Plattenberg, A Dutch Ship Running onto a Rocky Coast
at the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unit ...

From around 1630 he worked in Paris. He was active as a painter and copper engraver as well as a designer of embroidery patterns. In Paris, he studied under the Flemish émigré painter

Jacques Fouquier Jacques Fouquier, Jacques Fouquières or Jacob Focquier (c. 1590/91 – 1655)Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

. Web. 20 October 2014 In 1631 he married in Paris the sister of the French painter, engraver and publisher Jean Morin. Van Plattenberg and Morin collaborated on publishing projects for which van Plattenberg made the engravings. Matthieu van Plattenberg - A Dutch Ship in a Storm

Matthieu van Plattenberg - A Dutch Ship in a Storm

In France, van Plattenberg called himself 'Matthieu (de) Platte-Montaigne' or 'Platte-Montagne' and also signed his works with '(M) Montagne' or '(M) Montaigne'. Plattenberg's success gained him favour at the royal court and he was awarded the title of 'Peintre du Roy pour les mers' (Royal painter of seas'). He was one of the founding members in 1648 of the

Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (; en, "Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture") was founded in 1648 in Paris, France. It was the premier art institution of France during the latter part of the Ancien Régime until it was abol ...

and remained a member until his death in Paris in the year 1660.Matthieu Van Plattenberg - Platte-Montagne o Montagne (Anversa 1608 - Parigi 1660)
The son of Matthieu van Plattenberg, known as

Nicolas de Plattemontagne Nicolas de Plattemontagne, originally Nicolas Van Plattenberg (19 November 1631, Paris - 25 December 1706) was a French painter and engraver. His name also appears as La Montagne, Montagne and Montaigne. Biography His father was the Flemish p ...

, was a painter and a pupil of

Philippe de Champaigne Philippe de Champaigne (; 26 May 1602 – 12 August 1674) was a Brabançon-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school. He was a founding member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in Paris, the premier art ...

. He had a very successful career in France but his work fell into oblivion after his death.

Work

Plattenberg specialized in depictions of vividly coloured storms with turbulent, foaming seas. Van Plattenberg seldom signed or dated his works. Matthieu van Plattenberg - A Dutch Ship Running on to a Rocky Coast

Matthieu van Plattenberg - A Dutch Ship Running on to a Rocky Coast

His work has in the past been wrongly attributed to a presumed Flemish or Dutch painter active in Italy around the time when van Plattenberg was working there. This painter was referred to as 'Monsù Montagna' or 'Renaud de la Montagne'. The art historian

Marcel Roethlisberger Marcel Roethlisberger or Röthlisberger (born 1929), is a Swiss art historian and retired professor from the University of Geneva. He completed his doctoral thesis on Jacopo Bellini in 1955. He married the art historian Biancamaria Bianco in 1962 ...

has compared several dozen unsigned paintings of sea storms that traditionally were attributed to Monsù Montagna. He found that these paintings form a consistent group in that they combine Flemish types with a broad painterly treatment resembling the work of

Salvator Rosa Salvator Rosa (1615 –1673) is best known today as an Italian Baroque painter, whose romanticized landscapes and history paintings, often set in dark and untamed nature, exerted considerable influence from the 17th century into the early 19th ...

. Roethlisberger is of the view that these works formerly attributed to 'Monsù Montagna' are in fact works by van Plattenberg. Since Plattenberg left Italy before Rosa began to paint, any influence was likely from van Plattenberg to Rosa.Matthieu van Plattenberg, called Monsù Montagna (1608–1660), 'A Storm on a rocky Coast with Ships in Distress'
at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, t ...

website

Matthieu van Plattenberg - Landscape with Sunset

Van Plattenberg influenced the marine painter Allessandro Grevenbroeck, a painter of Dutch descent who was active in Northern Italy between 1717 and 1747. He is further considered an important precursor of

Pieter Mulier Pieter is a male given name, the Dutch form of Peter. The name has been one of the most common names in the Netherlands for centuries, but since the mid-twentieth century its popularity has dropped steadily, from almost 3000 per year in 1947 to ...

, known in Italy where he was active for most of his life as 'Cavalier Pietro Tempesta'. Mulier was especially known for the stormy skies of his seascapes and Plattenberg's paintings are believed to anticipate Tempesta's early sea storms. Tempesta must have seen van Plattenberg's works in Italy. Some of the works of Monsù Montagna (Matthieu van Plattenberg) have in the past been attributed to Mulier. Van Plattenberg is also to be distinguished from ''Montagne of Venice'' (or Rinaldo della Montagna), who was also a marine painter mentioned by

Cesare Malvasia Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616–1693) was an Italian scholar and art historian from Bologna, best known for his biographies of Baroque artists titled ''Felsina pittrice'', published in 1678. Life and career Malvasia is the Bolognese equivalen ...

in his biography of Guido Reni (p. 78).Abecedario de P.J. Mariette: et autres notes inédites de cet ..., Volume 4
by Pierre Jean Mariette, Philippe de Chennevières, Anatole de Montaiglon; 1857-1858; page 8. Plattenberg also executed three dozen engravings depicting sea- and landscapes. These engravings were often published by his brother-in-law Jean Morin and were inscribed ''.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Plattenberg, Matthieu van Flemish Baroque painters Flemish landscape painters Court painters Flemish marine artists House of Plettenberg Artists from Antwerp