Michael Angelo Immenraet

Michael Angelo Immenraet (18 October 1621, Antwerp – 1683, Utrecht), was a Flemish history and portrait painter who is mainly remembered for the lavish Baroque painting series of Biblical scenes which he produced for the Unionskirche, Idstein in Germany.

Philips Augustijn Immenraet was born in Antwerp as the son of a German piano builder who had immigrated to Antwerp. He was the older brother of the successful landscape painter Philips Augustijn Immenraet. It is not clear with whom he trained but on the basis of his style he is often regarded as a painter from the school of Peter Paul Rubens.

Immenraet married Maria Vergouwen, the sister of the paintress Johanna Vergouwen on 8 February 1661. The couple had three daughters. His wife died in 1664 upon giving birth to the third child. Immenraet and his sister-in-law Johanna Vergouwen engaged in extensive legislation regarding the inheritance of his deceased wife. On 26 November 1665 he married Margaretha Corthals and after her death he married a third time with Maria Brouwers. He had four daughters and two sons from the three marriages.

Immenraet is documented in The Hague in 1661. Here he paints a chimney piece for the 'Hofje van Nieuwkoop', a housing project for poor widows funded from the inheritance of Johan de Bruijn van Buijtewech, a rich citizen of The Hague. The chimney piece represents the double portrait of Odila en Philippine van Wassenaer, the nieces of van Buijtewech and two first governesses of the project. The two young governesses are depicted as shepherdesses.

He was registered in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1663.

He worked in Germany for a period where between 1673 and 1678. He was responsible together with his pupil or assistant Johann Caspar Bencard for 38 of the oil on canvas paintings decorating the ceiling of the Unionskirche, Idstein.

Little is known about his later years except that he died in Utrecht.

Michel Angelo Immenraet painted allegorical, history, religious and genre scenes as well as portraits. Aside from the painting cycle in the Unionskirche, Idstein not many of his works are known.

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