Paolo Fiammingo

Pauwels Franck, known in Italy as Paolo Fiammingo and Paolo Franceschi (c. 1540–1596), was a Flemish painter, who, after training in Antwerp, was active in Venice for most of his life. He is mainly known for his landscapes with mythological, allegorical and religious scenes. He worked in a Mannerist style showing the influence of Tintoretto, Veronese, and Bassano.

Life No concrete details about Pauwels Franck's early life and training have been preserved. It is believed that he was born around 1540 based on a Venetian report of 1648 which states that he died at the age of 56. His birthplace is not known with certainty but it was likely Antwerp as he became a member of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1561. He is recorded in Venice from 1573 but was likely an assistant in Tintoretto's workshop there already in the 1560s. Around 1565 he made large paintings in the new sala dei Dogi, after the old one had been destroyed by fire.

From 1584 to his death the artist was registered at the painter's guild of Venice. In Italy the artist became known by the name Paolo Fiammingo ('Paul the Fleming'). He resided and worked in Venice for the rest of his career. Fugger commissioned him in 1580 to produce several series of paintings to decorate Castle Kirchheim in Bavaria near Augsburg, the Fugger family's summer residence. While Paolo Fiammingo produced a large number of work in the 1580s for the Fugger commissions, he appears to have produced at the same time several versions of many of the compositions made for the Fugger family. Another important commission was for a painting showing Mercury saving Virtue in a series of the seven planets in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice. The other paintings of this series were made by his master Tintoretto and great artists of his time like Paolo Veronese and Jacopo Palma il Giovane.

He died in Venice on 20 December 1596.

A series of allegories of the Four Elements made for the Fuggers are lost but other series and copies of these allegories are still in existence. A full set was sold at Sotheby's on 5 December 2007 lot 17.

Landscapes took up a more important part of the artist's activity from 1590 onwards. He is known to have painted the landscape backgrounds for works by Tintoretto and Maerten de Vos. His landscape compositions combine the Nordic tradition of landscape paintings with Venetian pictorial plots. His brushwork is loose and less descriptive than Flemish landscapes from the same time. His palette is decidedly Venetian, with mainly warm colours, dominated by brown, red and pink. An example is the Landscape with nymphs fishing (Pinacoteca Civica, Vicenza). While the landscape component is prevalent in this composition there is a narrative element with nymphs fishing and figures darting from the foreground to the background. The canvas dates from the later period of the painter's career when he often reflected on the themes of hunting and fishing activities. The theme of the composition may also be an allegory of water. The exuberance of the nature portrayed with great precision shows his Flemish training. The Flemish character is tempered by obvious Venetian influences, and in particular that of Tintoretto, reflected in the perspective view and the sudden movement of protagonists, highlighted by light touches and light strokes.