Herman Van Swanevelt Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Herman van Swanevelt, born in Woerden in 1603 and died in Paris in 1655, was a Dutch painter and printmaker of the Baroque period. We don't have much information about his artistic training, but it is assumed that he studied with Willem Buytewech. Read the full biography

Herman van Swanevelt, born in Woerden in 1603 and died in Paris in 1655, was a Dutch painter and printmaker of the Baroque period. We don't have much information about his artistic training, but it is assumed that he studied with Willem Buytewech. Swanevelt's first signed and dated works date back to 1623 in Paris. In 1629 he moved to Rome, where he painted numerous landscapes characterized by a particular lighting that reflected the different hours of the day. Swanevelt became a member of the Bentvueghel and adopted the pseudonym "hermit" as he preferred to work alone. Created and developed by Paul Bril and Cornelis van Poelenburch from 1600 onwards, the "Italian landscape" genre entered its classical phase in the 1630s with the advent of Swanevelt and his friends and contemporaries Pieter van Laer and Claude Lorrain. Swanevelt's works became very popular and attracted the attention of important patrons such as the Barberini family, Pope Urban VIII and the Vatican, who commissioned him to paint such as those in the Montecassino monastery. In 1651 he was admitted as a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Among his French patrons were Cardinal Richelieu and King Louis XIV. Swanevelt died in Paris in 1655.