Thursday, September 1, 2016

On this Date in History: September 1, death of Jan Brueghel the Younger and King Louis XIV, birth of Zuccari

The French King Louis XIV died on September 1, 1715.  This marked the end of the longest reign of any European monarch.  

Under his reign (May 14, 1643 – September 1, 1715) there were many advances in French art: 1648, the French Royal Academy opened and turned the small hunting lodge of Versailles into an enormous Royal Palace. Louis XIV patronized artists such as Charles Le Brun and Hyacinthe Rigaud and architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart.

Rigaud's famous full length painting of the king is shown below, today it is in the Louvre.

King Louis XIV, Hyacinthe Rigaud, 1701

Also September 1 marks the date of the death of Jan Brueghel the Younger (September 13, 1601 – September 1, 1678).  Brueghel was the son of a famous Flemish painter known as Jan Brueghel the Elder and was a successful painter in his own right.

The Garden of Eden, Jan Brueghel the Younger, c.-1650

Brueghel was born in Antwerp and spent most of his career there.  He is best known for his landscape, religious painting and allegorical paintings and had a large influence on the work of Flemish Baroque painters.


Italian mannerist painter Taddeo Zuccari (September 1, 1529- September 2, 1566) was born near Urbino.  Zuccari worked mainly in Rome as a fresco painter.

His best know works were a series of scenes of the Passion of Chris in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Consolazione and historic scenes in the Villa Farnese.

Zuccari died in Rome the day after his 37th birthday and was buried in the Pantheon near Raphael.

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