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Lacewing Fine Art
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ADAM FRANS VAN DER MEULEN (1632-1690)
‘The French Army Crossing the Rhine at Lobith, 12 June 1672’
( France
1672
)
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Medium
wash en grisaille - signed
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Dimensions
34.50cm wide
23.00cm high
(13.58 inches wide 9.06 inches high)
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Literature:
Bibl Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs by E. Benezit
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Description / Expertise
The French Army Crossing the Rhine at Lobith, 12 June 1672’
wash en grisaille - 23 x 34.5cms
Adam Frans van der Meulen was a landscape and genre painter, born in Brussels in 1632.
In 1646 he was apprenticed to the battle painter Pieter Snayers, with whom he studied. Snayeers taught him to draw horses & use the light clear touch of the Rubens school.
In 1651 he became a master in the Guild of St Luke in Brussels but by 1663 he had moved to Paris, where he joined a group of Netherlandish artists associated with the French painter Charles Le Brun (1619-90), who not only was Premier peintre du roi, but also (from 1663) director of the Parisian tapestry manufactory Manufacture royale des Gobelins.
His most important task was to accompany the King on his many campaigns during the wars of conquest waged in the 1660s & 1670s against, inter alia the Spanish Netherlands and as Peintre de conquêtes du roi officially to portray the memorable sieges, battles & conquests of le Roi Soleil in large-scale canvases or cartoons, which were later, transformed into tapestries. On site, then and there, he drew encampments, troop dispositions and often plans of towns
Van der Meulen quickly became a protégé of Le Brun, and on his recommendation was appointed court painter to Louis XIV, on 1 April 1664 and at the same time became Le Brun's collaborator in the tapestry manufactory.
In 1673 he was accepted as a member of the Académie royale de Peinture et de Sculpture without any obligation to submit a morceau de réception; in 1681 he became conseiller and in 1686 premier conseiller.
He painted murals in the chateau of Versailles and in the Hotel des Invalides (Artillery Museum). His pupils included Martin the Elder, Martin the Younger, J.B. Lecomte, Duru, and others.
He died as a highly esteemed artist in the Hôtel des Gobelins 15 October 1690.
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