Dirck Helmbreker | |
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![]() Selfportrait. | |
Born | Dirck Helmbreker 1633 |
Died | 1696 (aged 62–63) |
Nationality | Dutch |
Known for | Painting |
Movement | Baroque |
Dirck Helmbreker, Theodor Helmbreeker, or Teodoro Elembrech (1633 – 1696) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of Italianate landscapes.
According to Houbraken he lived from 1624 to 1694, but this has since been proven to be incorrect. [1] [2] He was born in Haarlem and became a pupil of Pieter de Grebber. [1] He traveled to Rome at a young age, where he remained until his death. [2] His paintings belong to the group of artists known as the Bamboccianti, or, as Houbraken writes, Bamboots, [2] which is a specialization by Northern artists in small-scale genre scenes in the manner of Pieter van Laer while in Rome. [3] Helmbreker arrived in Italy in 1654, eventually settling in Rome by the end of the decade. [4] At the end of the 1670s he and the Flemish painter Willem Reuter were members of a group known as the ' Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon'. [5] The Congregazione counted among its members many important artists who left their mark in Rome.
He was influenced by Sébastien Bourdon. [1] His genre scenes, which were among the last generation of the Bamboccianti, [3] tended to be more classical in inspiration than many their earlier low-life scenes. [4] Ultimately, these works found great success with Italian collectors. [4] In 1695 he was commissioned to paint the main altar piece of the Church of St. Julian of the Flemings in Rome.
Houbraken described a painting from 1681 in the possession of Pieter Klok showing an Italian monastery with a group of poor people in the foreground with various handicaps being given soup from a large kettle ladled by a Franciscan friar. Helmbreker was very religious and donated often to the poor of Rome. [2]