Carel Fabritius

Carel Pieterszoon ( Pietersz.) Fabritius (; bapt. 27 February 1622 – 12 October 1654) was a Dutch painter. He was a pupil of Rembrandt and worked in his studio in Amsterdam. Fabritius, who was a member of the Delft School, developed his own artistic style and experimented with perspective and lighting. Among his works are A View of Delft (1652; National Gallery, London), The Goldfinch, and The Sentry (1654).

Biography Carel Pietersz. Fabritius was born in February 1622 in Middenbeemster, a village in the ten-year-old Beemster polder in the Dutch Republic, and was baptized on 27 February of that year. He was the son of Pieter Carelsz. Fabritius, a painter and schoolteacher, and Barbertje van der Maes. He had two younger brothers, Barent and Johannes, who also became painters.

Initially he worked as a carpenter (Latin: fabritius). In 1641 he entered the Dutch Reformed Church and in September of that year married Aeltge Velthuys, who died in childbirth in 1643. He also lost his twin children (born in 1642) and baby the same year as his wife. In the early 1640s he studied at Rembrandt's studio in Amsterdam, along with his brother Barent. In 1650 he married the widow Agatha van Pruyssen. In the early 1650s he moved to Delft, and joined the Delft painters' guild in 1652.

Fabritius died at the age of 32, caught in the explosion of the Delft gunpowder magazine on 12 October 1654, which destroyed a quarter of the city, along with his home studio and many of his paintings. The explosion, having taken place in the Doelenkwartier district across the lane from the studio situated on the adjacent Doelenstraat, caused the roof and walls to collapse upon him as he worked at his easel burying him under the rubble for six hours. He was brought out alive but seriously injured with crush syndrome and blast trauma; he died shortly afterwards in the makeshift infirmary and was buried 48 hours later in the Oude Kerk. Only about a dozen paintings have survived. The Goldfinch painting was found intact amongst the ruins.

In a poem written by Arnold Bon to his memory, he is called Karel Faber. 1645–47 Mercury and Aglauros oil on canvas, 72.4 x 91.1 cm, Museum of Fine Arts Boston 1646–1651 A Girl with a Broom, oil on canvas, 107.3 x 91.4 cm, signed as Rembrandt, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C 1649 Portrait of Abraham de Potter, oil on canvas, 68.5 x 57 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1652 A View of Delft, with a Musical Instrument Seller's Stall, oil on canvas on panel, 15.4 x 31.6 cm, National Gallery London 1654 The Goldfinch, oil on panel, Mauritshuis The Hague 1654 The Sentry, oil on canvas, 68 x 58 cm, Staatliches Museum Schwerin Schwerin 1654 Young Man in a Fur Cap, oil on canvas, 70.5 x 61.5 cm, National Gallery London (probably a self-portrait)