Paul Vredeman de Vries

Paul Vredeman de Vries (Antwerp, 1567 - Amsterdam, 1617), was a Flemish painter and draughtsman who specialised in architectural paintings and, in particular, church interiors.

He was a son of the Dutch-born architect, painter and engineer Hans Vredeman de Vries who at the time was working in the Southern Netherlands. In 1564 his father had fled to Antwerp from Mechelen, where he had been living in order to escape the Inquisition. He trained with his father who was as a painter interested in perspective and therefore painted mainly architectural paintings.

He is known to have collaborated with his father in the completion of large assignments. He worked in Danzig from 1592 to 1595 where his father was employed in the design of defensive works. He worked in Prague from 1596 to 1599 where he painted the ceilings and the reception rooms of Emperor Rudolf II’s castle. He was active in Amsterdam from 1599 to 1617. There is a record of a notice of marriage between him and Mayken Godelet issued in Amsterdam and dated 24 April 1601. In 1649 she was buried in Nieuwe Kerk. The year her husband died is uncertain; it could be 1630 when his designs for furniture were published or later, but before 1636.

He was the master of Hendrick Aerts and Isaak van den Blocke, both artists of Flemish descent who were living in Gdansk. His older brother Salomon Vredeman de Vries (1556–1604) was also an architectural draughtsmen and painter who collaborated with him and his father.

He specialised in architectural paintings and, in particular, imaginary church interiors and palaces. His paintings show a meticulous attention to perspective. He developed an original poetic vision in his mature years. The facades of palaces that are richly ornate and the colonnades of which open onto flowered courtyards with fountains and sculptures provide the setting for scenes from ancient history or sacred history. The rigour of the geometric composition, which incorporates the principles of the contemporary treatises on perspective, is tempered by an atmospheric rendering of the light with its silvery shimmers. The interiors are a reconstruction of the interior decoration of his day such as chairs trimmed with leather, embossed leather hangings and canopies with valances.

...
Wikipedia