Frans Badens

Frans Badens (Antwerp, 1571 – Amsterdam, before 17 November 1618) was a Flemish-born painter who was active in Amsterdam where he was known for his mythological and religious scenes and portraits. In his lifetime he was regarded as one of the most important painters who had moved to Amsterdam and was admired for his realistic treatment of the skin.

Frans Badens was born in Antwerp in 1571 as the son of an obscure artist. His brother was Jan Badens. The family left Antwerp and moved to Amsterdam shortly after 18 November 1576. It is not clear with whom he trained. The early 17th century art historian and biographer Karel van Mander reported that Badens trained with his father who died in 1604. It is believed that he studied in Italy between 1591-1597 where he had travelled with Jacob Matham.

Badens is recorded back in Amsterdam in 1598 when he bought a house in the Kalverstraat. Badens took over the studio previously owned by first Dirck Barendsz and later on by Pieter Isaacsz. It has been suggested that this studio located on the Oude Turfmarkt in Amsterdam was known as a place where local citizens could buy paintings in the Italian manner. By acquiring this studio Badens likely could rely on the status of that area of Amsterdam where paintings in a certain style and of a certain quality were sold.

His pupils included Gerbrand Bredero, Adriaen van Nieulandt and Jeremias van Winghe. When the prominent engraver Hendrick Hondius decided to try his hand at painting in 1600, Frans Badens was likely his first master.

The contemporary reputation of Badens is evidenced by the inclusion of an engraved portrait of the artist in Hendrick Hondius' Pictorum aliquot celebrium praecipue Germaniae inferioris Effigies (Effigies of some celebrated painters, chiefly of Lower Germany), which was a collection of 69 portraits of prominent, chiefly Netherlandish artists published in 1610. The accompanying Latin verse underneath the portrait begins with the line "addit picturae meliús nemo colores", which translates as "no one was better at adding colours to a painting."

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