Michiel Sweerts

Paintings

Michiel Sweerts (September 29, 1618–1664), also known as Michael Sweerts, was a Flemish painter of the Baroque period, active in Rome (1645–1656) in the style of the Bamboccianti. The Bamboccianti were known for depicting genre scenes of daily life.

Biography

Born in Brussels, he arrived in Rome in 1646[1], and rapidly moved into the circle of Flemish painters associated with Pieter van Laer, and that resided near Santa Maria del Popolo. In 1647, he attended meetings of the Accademia di San Luca, although not as a member. In 1652-3 he returned to the North, and by 1656, he had returned to Brussels, where he joined the painter's guild. He joined the Paris Foreign Missions Society as a lay brother and became a devout Christian. In 1658 he made the guild a self portrait as a farewell gift and moved to Amsterdam, where he would oversee the building of a ship for travel with the Franse Missions Étrangère to Palestine.[2]
Michiel Sweerts, Wrestling Match, 1649.

Travel to Palestine

As a member of the Foreign Missions Society, he sailed east in 1661 from Marseille to Palestine with bishop Francois Pallu, 7 priests and another lay brother. Travelling to Aleppo (Syria), and from there to Isfahan via Tabriz (both in Persia), he was dismissed by the Society after causing too much trouble to those around him at the end of May, 1662. He died two years later in Goa (India).

Legacy

Sweerts is an enigmatic and difficult artist to categorize, since he seems to have absorbed a variety of influences to create an eclectic hybrid that can be described as a Netherlandish genre adaptation of an early tenebrist styles: a blend of Vermeer's genre of painting and Caravaggio-influenced full bodied figures. His portrait of a young girl hangs near the girl with a pearl earring by Vermeer in the Mauritshuis.

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