This biography from the Archives of AskART:
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compared to the extensive information about American artists.
 Flemish
painter Joos van Craesbeeck was the son of an alderman and baker. In
1631 he became a citizen of Antwerp and was entered as a journeyman
baker, probably at the age of about 25, though a Self-portrait in front of a Mirror
(previously at the Kunsthalle, Bremen; now untraced) had an old
inscription on the back (not in the artist’s hand) stating that
Craesbeeck was 39 in 1647. He married Johanna Tielens, the daughter of
the deceased Antwerp prison baker, in the chapel of Het Gasteel, the
Antwerp prison, in January 1631. In 1633–4 he was enrolled as a baker
and painter in the Guild of St Luke at Antwerp, and in 1637 he was
listed as the proprietor of a new house with a bakery there. He
subsequently moved to Brussels, where he became a master in the
painter’s guild in 1651. In 1653–4 he registered two pupils with the
guild.
According to de Bie and Houbraken, Craesbeeck was probably taught by
Adriaen Brouwer; he may have met him in 1633 when Brouwer was in prison
for tax debts (Craesbeeck baked bread for the prison). This is also
borne out by a certain stylistic similarity in his early pictures to
Brouwer’s work. Like Brouwer, Craesbeeck found his subject-matter in
tavern interiors with simple people, but he subsequently turned
completely to the middle-class world, which was depicted both carousing
at the inn and in domestic genre scenes. He occasionally painted a
studio scene (e.g. Artist’s Studio, Fondation Custodia, Institute Néerlandais, Paris) and there are a few New Testament stories, such as the Massacre of the Innocents (Linz, Abbey of St Florian) and Ecce homo
(sold London, Christies, 14 May 1971, lot 43), painted in the style and
manner of the Rembrandt school. There is also the occasional
unmistakable Christian allegory among the genre pictures, such as Brawl at an Inn: ‘Death is Fierce and Quick’ (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten).
The Company of Drinkers (Kassel, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe) is
signed with Craesbeeck’s full name, and about 30 other paintings have
the monogram cb or jvcb (e.g. Flemish Tavern and At the Antwerp Arms, both Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten). However, except for the missing Self-portrait in front of a Mirror,
none of the pictures is dated, nor is it possible to link them to a
fixed date; their chronology is therefore hard to establish with any
certainty. Pictures that still show the influence of Brouwer clearly
must be earlier. At first, the figures correspond to Brouwer’s figure
types (e.g. Peasant in a Felt Hat, Berlin, Bodemuseum). In Peasants Smoking
(Munich, Alte Pinacothek) Craesbeeck treated the same subject as
Brouwer, like him concentrating on depicting the emotions revealed in
the expression, but failing to achieve the same trenchancy and sureness
of touch. The composition of the picture, with its four figures, is also
reminiscent of Brouwer, and the colouring follows Brouwer’s later works
in the subtly harmonized toning with occasional gleaming highlights.
The technique is also influenced by him, especially the thin application
of colour that often leaves the ground partly visible. Craesbeeck’s Smoker (Paris, Louvre), directly influenced by Brouwer’s The Smokers
(New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), is a facial study of a smoker
with eyes rolling and an open mouth with smoke welling up out of it.
Brouwer’s influence is less evident in paintings that are obviously
later. The colours used tend increasingly towards browns and greys.
Probably following on from that phase, carried out under the influence
of painting in Brussels, is a group of pictures in vivid colours:
dazzling white, yellow, a cool light blue and salmon red dominate the
palette. In his mature work, which was independent of Brouwer,
Craesbeeck used an individual, unmistakable and firmly established
repertory of figures that makes his work easy to recognize: bearded men
with flat or fur-decked caps, women with white bonnets or a particularly
conspicuous straw hat. In these pictures, too, he tried to emulate
Brouwer’s mimic narrative, but the rolling eyes and roaring mouths never
achieve the deft trenchancy of his model.
Craesbeeck is represented within the following collections: Louvre,
Paris; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Alte Pinacothek, Munich;
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp; Bodemuseum, Berlin;
amongst others.
Source:
Sphinx Fine Art
http://www.sphinxfineart.com/Craesbeeck-Joos-van-
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