Abraham Van Dieooenbeck

ABRAHAM VAN DIEPENBEECK (Bolduque, 1596- Antwerp, 1675)
"Holy Family".
Oil on copper.
Measurements: 43 x 32 cm; 59'5 x 48 cm (frame).
In this typically baroque composition, of studied symmetry but avoiding all formal rigidity, the Holy Family occupies the lower part of the painting while a scenographic break of Glory makes God the Father emerge accompanied by seraphim and cherubs. The dove of the Holy Spirit radiates above Jesus' fringed head, forming a perfect vertical line between Father, Son and Holy Spirit (the Trinity). The Dutch painter Abraham Van Diepenbeeck brings together in this painting his mastery of composition and draughtsmanship, so that the monumentality of the bodies and the angelic foreshortenings are combined with an effective spatial illusion. Joseph, with his bouquet of lilies, and the Virgin, with her head tilted to one side, flank the Child Jesus, foreshadowing the cycle of the Passion with Mary's melancholy face and the city of Jerusalem in the distance.
Abraham van Diepenbeeck was a scholar and multidisciplinary artist (painter, glass artist, draftsman and designer) of the seventeenth century. He trained in the art of stained glass with his father, in his native Bolduque, although by 1621 he moved to Antwerp, starting his career as a stained glass author (in fact, in 1622 he joined the Guild of St. Luke as a master glass painter). From this early period we find works of his hand as the stained glass windows of the cathedral of Antwerp with the acts of mercy or the life of St. Paul in the church of the Dominicans in the same city. However, only two years later, in 1623, he entered the workshop of Rubens. There he worked on mythological and historical themes, as well as portraits, showing a pictorial language of great skill and vigor and a colorful and vibrant palette. Diepenbeeck remained the rest of his life in Antwerp, obtaining citizenship in 1636 and being admitted to the Guild of St. Luke in the city just two years later (already as an easel painter). He played an important role in the pictorial scene of the time, and in fact in 1641 became director of the school that would become the Academy of Fine Arts of the city. We know that he later made a trip to Italy, as a result of which he began to make drawings, many of them transferred to engraving by Cornelis Bloemaert. In fact, his work as a draughtsman will take him to England for a while, where he will make illustrations for the book "General system of horsemanship in all its classes", in addition to portraying the first Duke of Newcastle and his family. Several sources indicate that Diepenbeeck was a prominent member of Rubens' workshop, especially important among his disciples. This claim is supported mainly by the fact that he was one of the painters who worked on the cartoons for "The Triumph of the Eucharist", the series of tapestries commissioned by Isabel Clara Eugenia for the Monasterio de las Descalzas in Madrid. Works by Abraham van Diepenbeeck are currently held in the Louvre Museum, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Royal Collection and the Royal Academy in London, the Fitzwilliam of the University of Cambridge, the Fine Arts Museums of Antwerp, Lyon and Bordeaux, the Magnin in Dijon, the Episcopal Museum in Haarlem, the National Gallery of Denmark and the Royal Museums of Belgium, among other outstanding collections.