A Sleeping Youth in an Italianate Landscape with Simone Moschino’s Statue of the Apotheosis of Alessandro Farnese
Jan Weenix
Dutch (1642-1719)
A Sleeping Youth in an Italianate Landscape with Simone Moschino's Statue of the Apotheosis of Alessandro Farnese (1660)
Oil on canvas
The Louise Crombie Beach Memorial Fund 2007.1
Soldiers and Hostages
Willem Cornelisz Duyster
Dutch (1598-1635)
Soldiers and Hostages (1630)
Oil on panel
The Louise Crombie Beach Memorial Fund, 1967.2
Over the course of the 16th century, linen canvas gradually replaced wooden panels as the most popular support for oil painting in Europe. This shift took hold more slowly in the Low Countries north of the Alps, where oil painting had originated, than in Italy, where canvas first became popular.
These two paintings—one on canvas, the other on panel—were created in The Netherlands during the 17th century, a period of empire-building and increasing wealth driven by international trade. Dutch painters specialized in a wide range of subjects to appeal to wealthy middle-class patrons, who purchased portable easel paintings to decorate their homes. Art was increasingly sold by dealers rather than commissioned by the consumer, establishing the art market we know today.