Jeremias van Winghe

Jeremias van Winghe (1578, Brussels – 1645, Frankfurt am Main) was a Flemish painter known for his portraits, genre scenes, kitchen scenes and still life paintings. After training in Brussels and Amsterdam, he was mainly active in Frankfurt am Main.

Life Jeremias van Winghe was born in Brussels in 1578 as the son of Joos van Winghe. His father was a painter who had studied in Italy and had become court painter to Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma in Brussels. The family van Winghe left the Southern Netherlands in 1584, possibly because of the Spanish repression at that time. They established themselves in Frankfurt am Main. Jeremias van Winghe likely started his training with his father.

Van Winghe initially trained as a portrait painter. When his father died in 1603, he went to study with the Flemish painter Frans Badens who resided in Amsterdam.

After spending time in Italy, Jeremias van Winghe established himself in Frankfurt am Main. In addition to portraits he also painted highly finished and beautifully executed still lifes, at a time when this subject matter was still fairly unexplored. He must have been among the first artists to introduce this type of painting to Frankfurt. He returned to painting later around 1640, and the break in his artistic activity partially explains the scarcity of his known oeuvre.

Another specialty of van Winghe were banquet type still lifes. An example is the composition A roemer on a silver-gilt bekerschroef, sweetmeats in a silver tazza, langoustines on a plate (dated 1607, at Christie's on 5–6 July 2007, London, lot 9). This work, which is signed with the initials 'IVW', had previously been attributed to Jacob van Walscapelle. This composition depicts diverse objects, that have been carefully placed on a tabletop and are brightly lit against a dark background. In this work van Winghe demonstrates his technical mastery in the rendering of diverse objects such as a silver tazza with sweetmeats, a silver-gilt German bekerschroef with designs of chameleons, swans and cherubs, surmounted by a half-filled roemer, two langoustines on a silver plate, walnuts, an apple and a wooden box, all placed on a marble-topped table. Van Winghe shows off his magnificent skills of observation in the small details, such as the reflection of the langoustines in the plate, the chameleons which grasp the foot of the roemer and the small chip on the edge of the tabletop. Van Winghe was able to merge these disparate elements into a harmonious composition. This type of still life had no obvious parallel at the time and appears to prefigure the work of artists such as Osias Beert, Georg Flegel and Peter Binoit. A religious painting of the Crucifixion has also been attributed to Jeremias van Winghe (At Roberts Simon).