Jeremias van Winghe

Jeremias van Winghe (Brussels. 1578 – Frankfurt am Main, 1645) was a Flemish painter known for his portraits, genre scenes, kitchen scenes and still life paintings. After training in Brussels and Amsterdam, he was mainly active in Frankfurt am Main.

Jeremias van Winghe was born in Brussels in 1578 as the son of Joos van Winghe. His father was a painter who had studied in Italy and had become court painter to Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma. The family van Winghe left the Southern Netherlands in 1584, possibly because of the Spanish repression at that time. They established themselves in Frankfurt am Main. Jeremias van Winghe likely started his training with his father.

Van Winghe initially trained as a portrait painter. When his father died in 1603, he went to study with the Flemish painter Frans Badens who resided in Amsterdam.

After spending time in Italy, Jeremias van Winghe established himself in Frankfurt am Main. In addition to portraits he also painted highly finished and beautifully executed still lifes, at a time when this subject matter was still fairly unexplored. He must have been among the first artists to introduce this type of painting to Frankfurt. On marrying Johanna de Neufville, the daughter of a jeweller, in 1616, he largely abandoned painting in favour of working in his father-in-law's business. He returned to painting later around 1640, and the break in his artistic activity partially explains the scarcity of his known oeuvre.

Jeremias van Winghe's work is not very well known. He started his career as a draughtsman of pen drawings but then developed into a figural and portrait painter. He was also an accomplished still life painter and painter of kitchen scenes.

A Kitchen still life in the Historical Museum, Frankfurt, which is signed and dated 'IERAMIA. VAN.WINGE. FECIT.1613', is a key work in establishing a number of attributions to the artist, including A kitchen interior with a maid preparing meat and gentlemen drinking at a table beyond (Christie's, 8 December 2004, lot 30). Both works depict a table laden with food. In the latter painting a maid is busy in a kitchen while in the background a large room is visible with two men and women sitting at a table apparently drinking wine. In the Frankfurt painting a maid is shown pushing away an eager suitor who offers her a silver coin. Through a hatch in the back wall three men can be seen sitting at a table playing backgammon. These kitchen scenes of van Winghe stand in the tradition of the kitchen and market still-life scenes developed by Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer in Antwerp in the 16th century. As in these earlier works, van Winghe juxtaposes a sumptuous display of foodstuffs with a narrative scene in the background. Through the monumental forms of the maid and the dynamic still-life elements his kitchen scenes show van Winghe's familiarity with similarly themed works by the 17th century Baroque still life painter Frans Snyders.

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