MONT, Deodat van der
Deodat van der Mont (or Deodat Delmont, in Italian Deodati del Monte), Flemish painter. He is primarily important as the earliest known pupil and assistant of Peter Paul Rubens. From a certificate drawn up for him by Rubens in 1628, it is known that in 1600 he travelled to Italy in Rubens’s service. Other documents confirm this: in 1608, for example, van der Mont witnessed Rubens’s contract with the Oratorians for the execution of a ‘Nativity’, intended for the high altar of San Filippo Neri in Fermo. In October 1608 he returned to Antwerp with Rubens. Immediately after this he enrolled as a member of the Guild of St Luke. He started working as a painter and is recorded as having a workshop with two pupils in 1610.
He entered into the service of the governors of the Southern Netherlands, the Archdukes Albert and Isabella. Then he became court painter as well as architect and military engineer to Philip Louis, Count Palatine of Neuburg. He worked also as architect for King Philip III of Spain.
There is little information on his paintings, he produced portrait, history and religious paintings in Rubens’s style.
