Johannes Fyt

Background

He was born at Antwerp on the 15 March 1611.

Education

He was registered apprentice to Hans van den Berghe in 1621. Professionally van den Berghe was a restorer of old pictures rather than a painter of new ones.

Career

In 1633 he went on a trip to Southern Europe and stopped for a while in Paris. Then he travelled to Italy the following year where he worked in Venice for the prominent Sagredo and Contarini families. He also visited Naples, Florence and Genoa. In Rome he joined the Bentvueghels, an association of mainly Dutch and Flemish artists. The Bentvueghels adopted an appealing nickname, the so-called 'bent name'. Fyt was reportedly given the bent name 'Goudvink' ('bullfinch'). The Italian art historian Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi stated in his Abecedario pittorico of 1704 that Fyt also spent time in Spain and London. In 1641 Fyt came back in Antwerp where he remained active for the remainder of his life. Fyt had a successful studio in Antwerp which produced many copies of his creations. He became a wealthy man and maintained a network of contacts with patrons and art dealers both at home and abroad. He was frequently mentioned in judicial documents in Antwerp in relation to disputes and court cases with other painters and members of his own family over money. Fyt was a part of the Guild of Romanists in 1650 that was a society of notables and artists which was active in Antwerp from the 16th to 18th century. In order to become a member of that society it was needed to visited Rome. In 1652 the Guild chose Fyt as its dean. He died in Antwerp on 11 September 1661.

Achievements

• " Silenus amongst Fruit and Flowers, " in the Harrach collection at Vienna, " Diana and her Nymphs with the Produce of the Chase, " in the Belvedere at Vienna, and " Dead Game and Fruit in front of a Triumphal Arch, " are Fyt's masterpieces. The earliest dated work of the master is a cat grabbing at a piece of dead poultry near a hare and birds, belonging to Baron Cetto at Munich, and executed in 1644. The latest is a " Dead Snipe with Ducks, " of 1660, sold with the Jager collection at Cologne in 1871. Great power is shown in the bear and boar hunts at Munich and Ravensworth castle. A " Hunted Roedeer with Dogs in the Water, " in the Berlin.

Personality

There never was such a master of technical processes as Fyt in theyendering of animal life in its most varied forms. He may have been less correct in outline, less bold in action than Snyders, but he was much more skilful and more true in the reproduction of the coat of deer, dogs, greyhounds, hares and monkeys, whilst in realizing the plumage of peacocks, woodcocks, ducks, hawks, and cocks and hens, he had not his equal, nor was any artist even of the Dutch school more effective in relieving his compositions with accessories of tinted cloth, porcelain ware, vases and fruit.

Connections

Fyt married Françoise van de Sande on 22 March 1654 and the couple had four children.

mentor:

Hans van den Berghe

Wife:

Françoise van de Sande