Hieronymus Francken I

Hieronymus Francken I or Hieronymus Francken the Elder (ca. 1540, Herentals–1610, Paris) was a Flemish painter and an important member of the Francken family of artists. After training in Antwerp, he was mainly active in France, where he became court painter at the French court. His compositions with elegant groups of dancing figures, musicians and courtiers anticipate the development of this genre in the 17th century.

Hieronymus Francken I was born in Herentals as the son of Nicolaes Francken, a painter from Herentals. His father later settled in Antwerp and was likely his first teacher. His brothers Frans Francken I and Ambrosius Francken I both became successful painters.

According to the early 17th century biographer Karel van Mander, who referred to him three times using three different names, i.e. Ieroon Francken van Herenthals, Ieroon Vrancks, and Ieroon Franck, Francken was a pupil of Frans Floris. He probably went to work with Floris in the early 1560s. It is unclear whether he traveled to Italy after his training in Antwerp. Such a trip is suggested by a work of his hand dated 1565 that depicts a scene from the Carnival of Venice (in the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen).

From 1566 to 1572 he was in France where he was one of the masters employed to decorate the Palace of Fontainebleau.Cornelis Floris, the Antwerp architect and brother of Francken's master Frans Floris, sent his son to Paris in 1568 to train with Hieronymus Francken I. Hieronymus became a master in Paris in 1570 and a naturalized French citizen in 1572. This did not stop him from returning to Antwerp regularly. In 1571 he was back in Antwerp to finish the Adoration of the Magi that had been left unfinished by Frans Floris when he died in 1570. In 1574 he is documented in Antwerp.

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