LINT, Pieter van - b. 1609 Antwerpen, d. 1690 Antwerpen - WGA

LINT, Pieter van

(b. 1609 Antwerpen, d. 1690 Antwerpen)

Flemish painter and draughtsman, active also in Italy. Before becoming master of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke in 1632, van Lint worked for several years with Artus Wolffort; he recorded their collaboration in his diary. During these years he frequently copied the more famous paintings in Antwerp’s churches, not only those by Peter Paul Rubens, but also works by older masters such as Marten de Vos and the Francken brothers. His earliest known painting, an Adoration of the Shepherds (1632; Vienna, Salesianerinnenkirche), shows a clear indebtedness to Wolffort’s style, which was in the pre-Rubensian, academic manner of Otto van Veen.

He became a master in Antwerp in 1632. He then moved to Rome where his primary clients were a prominent family and a Roman Catholic cardinal. During this period he painted a series of frescoes and made chalk studies of antique and Renaissance drawings. Lint returned to Antwerp in 1640 and painted in a classical manner influenced by Caravaggio. He also painted portraits and religious and mythological scenes.

Allegory
Allegory by

Allegory

The painting depicts an allegory with Labour being rewarded by Abundance and Peace, witnessed by Minerva and Time.

Bacchus, Ceres, Proserpina and Pluto
Bacchus, Ceres, Proserpina and Pluto by

Bacchus, Ceres, Proserpina and Pluto

Christ Healing the Lame at the Pool of Bethesda
Christ Healing the Lame at the Pool of Bethesda by

Christ Healing the Lame at the Pool of Bethesda

Pieter van Lint devoted himself mainly to painting cabinet pieces of both religious and secular subjects, sometimes in sets, particularly after his return to Antwerp in about 1640 after many years in Italy. He continued in a rather stiff classicist style until his death.

Christ and fhe Adulterous Woman
Christ and fhe Adulterous Woman by

Christ and fhe Adulterous Woman

Jephthae's Daughter
Jephthae's Daughter by

Jephthae's Daughter

Medici Venus
Medici Venus by

Medici Venus

From 1633 to 1640 Van Lint lived in Rome, in the service of the Cibo family and of Cardinal Ginnasio. Here ha painted frescoes and made studies of classical sculpture, including the Medici Venus.

Silvio and Dorinda
Silvio and Dorinda by

Silvio and Dorinda

Silvio and Dorinda was a pair of lovers from the pastoral play Il Pastor Fido, The Faithful Shepherd, by the Italian poet Guarini (1538-1612). Dorinda, disguised as a shepherd and wearing a wolf’s skin, was accidentally slain by Silvio when he was out hunting. The subject is found in northern Baroque painting and shows Dorinda lying in the arms of the old servant Linco. Silvio kneels beside her, offering an arrow to Linco, at the same time baring his breast, since he has no further wish to live.

The work of the Flemish painter is characterized by a sentimental and theatrical presentation, but this is at least as much due to the master’s artistic nature as to the literary genre to which the depicted subject belonged.

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