Jan van der Venne

Jan van der Venne or Jan van de Venne, formerly known as Pseudo van de Venne or Pseudo-Van der Venne, in older sources sometimes spelled van der Vinnen (active by 1616 – died before 1651) was a Flemish painter of genre subjects, religious scenes and cabinet paintings. Many of his works depict "low-life" genre scenes of tooth-pullers, card-players and hurdy-gurdy players, tronies and expressive religious scenes. He was court painter to the governors of the Spanish Netherlands.

Art historian Jacques Foucart from the Louvre corrected the wrong attribution in an article published in 1978. Foucart identified Pseudo-Van de Venne with another Jan van der Venne whom he identified as a Flemish artist. This identification of 'Pseudo-Van de Venne' with Jan van der Venne, an artist believed to have been born in Mechelen c. 1600, has since gained wide acceptance.

Life Very little is known about Van der Venne's life and career. Even though some of the artist's works bear the mark of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke, he is believed to have been active mainly in Brussels. This view is supported by his relationships with prominent personalities in Brussels including at the court. Both Cardinal-infant Ferdinand and Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, governors of the Spanish Netherlands, were his patrons. Van der Venne is recorded as a master in the Guild of Saint Luke in Brussels in 1616. Work General

Only a few signed paintings by van der Venne are documented. His oeuvre has been reconstituted based on signed or documented works which show his very individual style, subjects, use of light and brilliancy. Tronies Many of his works are so-called 'tronies', i.e. caricatural portraits of heads. The squeaky misery of the characters often depicted in profile and the virtuosity of the pasty effects are close to the early production of Georges de La Tour. The use of light that make the clothes and folds flicker also evokes French late Mannerists such as Claude Vignon and Claude Deruet.

Jan van de Venne occasionally paired and juxtaposed two different tronies with each other.

Gypsy scenes Jan van der Venne painted various scenes with gypsies. As many of these works ended up in collections in French museums (Aix-en Provence, Auxerre, Besançon, Chambéry, Dijon, Dunkirk, Hazebrouck, Lille, Marseille, Louvre, Quimper and Semur-en-Auxois) he earned the sobriquet 'le Maître des Tziganes' (the Master of the Gypsies) in France.