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Jacques Bellange (c. 1575–1616) was an artist and printmaker from the Duchy of Lorraine (then independent but now part of France) whose etchings and some drawings are his only securely identified works today. They are among the most striking Northern Mannerist old master prints, mostly on Catholic religious subjects, and with a highly individual style. He worked for fourteen years in the capital, Nancy as court painter to two Dukes of Lorraine, before dying at the age of about forty, and almost all his prints were produced in the three or four years before his death. None of his paintings are known to have survived, but the prints have been known to collectors since shortly after his death, though they were out of critical favour for most of this period. In the 20th century they have been much more highly regarded, although Bellange is still not a well-known figure. ==Life== Bellange's place of birth and family background are unknown, according to Griffiths and Hartley,〔Griffiths and Hartley, 9, 20 etc〕 but most French sources assume he was born in the Bassigny region, also apparently known as "Bellange", in the south of the duchy around the fortified village of La Mothe, where he is first documented in 1595.〔See for example (The Getty Union List of Artist's Names )〕 The village was completely destroyed in 1645 by French armies after a siege during their conquest of Lorraine, and no longer exists.〔Griffiths and Hartley, 21.〕 He is recorded in 1595 as living "at present" in La Mothe; he had travelled to Nancy, where he took on an apprentice, and it is inferred that he must have been at least 20 to do so, hence his approximate date of birth.〔Griffiths and Hartley, 9, 21; This is repeated by most sources, but see Rosenberg, who mentions dates in the 1560s.〕 The complete absence of mentions in the record of his family, his rapid rise from 1602 in the court at Nancy, and his use of the title of "knight" has led to speculation that he may have been the illegitimate son of some court personage.〔Griffiths and Hartley, 20〕 After the 1595 record there is a complete gap until 1602, although the destruction of La Mothe is likely to be one reason for this. Scholars have speculated that Bellange travelled either in this period or before 1595. The connection with Crispijn de Passe in Cologne (see below) may mean that he had visited that city. In eight of Bellange's prints, his signature describes him as "eques" or "knight", but it seems clear that this title was not given by the Dukes of Lorraine. It is not impossible that he had acquired it at some other court during this period, and returned to Lorraine around 1602 with the prestige of an artist with international experience.〔Griffiths and Hartley, 20, 36–38, see also 28–29—some of the "Eques" signatures are probably not by Bellange himself. Some sources are not so sure the knighthood was not a Lorraine one—see Rosenberg for example.〕 He appears employed as a court painter in Nancy in 1602, and thereafter appears regularly in the court accounts until 1616, the year of his death. After completing his first commission, to paint a room in the palace, he was taken on with a salary of 400 francs in 1603, twice what any previous court painter had been paid, and given the second rank out of the five court painters, with the additional function or title of ''valet de garderobe''.〔Griffiths and Hartley, 18–21〕 Some jobs for the court attracted extra payments: in 1606 he repainted, for 1,200 francs, the ''Galerie des Cerfs'', the main public space of the palace, used as a law court among other things. He appears to have repeated the previous scheme of hunting scenes. In the same year he was commissioned (1,700 francs, shared) to execute, but not design, a temporary triumphal arch for the royal entry of Marguerite Gonzaga, the new wife of Henri, the heir to the duchy, who inherited upon the death of his father Charles in 1608. This was Lorraine's first classical triumphal arch, surmounted by a statue of Virgil in honour of the bride's Mantuan home. Bellange also produced a car for use in the ballet produced for the celebrations, with 12 papier-maché putti.〔Griffiths and Hartley, 19〕 In March 1608, just before the old duke's death, Bellange was given 135 francs for a trip to France to see the new royal art commissions, his only documented travel outside Lorraine. He is not recorded as working on the funeral arrangements in mid-May, so was probably still away. His largest recorded commission, for 4,000 francs in 1610, was to decorate the ''Salle Neuf'' of the palace with scenes from Ovid.〔Griffiths and Hartley, 19–20〕 In 1612 he married Claude Bergeron, the 17-year-old daughter of a prominent Nancy apothecary, with whom he had three sons. The dowry was 6,000 francs, with a promise that the Bergerons' country house would pass to the couple. The exact date and cause of Bellange's death in 1616 are unknown. His widow remarried another courtier in 1620 and had a further five children, living into the 1670s. She seems to have neglected her sons from her first marriage, two of whom appear to have died young; Henri, the oldest, was apprenticed in 1626 to Claude Deruet, his father's old apprentice, and was a minor painter, latterly in Paris.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jacques Bellange」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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