Antony Griffiths

Jacques Bellange (ca. 1575-1616) was a painter and a decorative and graphic artist who was employed for the majority of his career at the court of the Dukes of Lorraine, at Nancy. While numerous commissions for murals, portraits and other paintings by Bellange are documented in the court archives, none of these works are known to have survived, and today there are only a few canvases in the world’s museums that have more or less tentatively been attributed to the artist. In his last years, Bellange produced several dozen etchings—it is thought that he may have adopted the technique as a way of publicising and of disseminating his work internationally. Forty-eight of Bellange’s designs are thought to have survived as prints, with most of these displaying such a strongly distinctive style that their attribution is hardly in doubt. This book reproduces Bellange’s œuvre in full, bringing to life his fluidly expressive and deeply weird strain of Mannerism. Griffiths & Hartley provide a knowledgeable commentary & notes, etc.… (mais)