Artists

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  Venus and Adonis $AU 231.49 ~ 1,349.46
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  Vulcan and Maia $AU 185.06 ~ 973.74

Bartholomeus Spranger (1546 Antwerp-1611 Prague) learned his trade in Antwerp from Jan Mandijn, Frans Mostaert and Cornelis van Dalem. In 1565 he traveled via Paris and Lyon to Italy. After stops in Milan and Parma he arrived in Rome in 1566, where he stayed for nine years, working for Cardinal Farnese (1520-1589) and Pope Pius V (1566-1572), among others. In 1575 he went to Vienna to work in the court of Emperor Maximilian II (1527-1576). After the emperor's death, Spranger followed his son, Sudoif II (1552-1612), to Prague, where with his late manerist mythological and religious subjects he became the leading court painter. In 1584 Spranger was appointed Chamber Painter, and at the same time became a member of the painters' guild in Prague. In 1602 he travelled to Antwerp, Amsterdam and Haarlem; here he also met his biographer, Karel van Mander. The artist's works include Epitaph for the Goldsmith Nicolaus Muller, c. 1592, Narodni Galerie, Prague, Minerva as Victory over Ignorance, with Vulcan, after 1607, both located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.