Carel Fabritius

Not to be confused with Carl Ferdinand Fabritius (1637–1673), a German painter; and Fabritius Clarus (c.1615–1695), an Italian painter.

Carel Pietersz. Fabritius (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈkaːrəl ˈpitərs faːˈbritsijʏs]; bapt. 27 February 1622 – 12 October 1654) was a Dutch painter. He was a pupil of Rembrandt and worked in his studio in Amsterdam. Fabritius, who was a member of the Delft School, developed his own artistic style and experimented with perspective and lighting. Among his works are A View of Delft (1652; National Gallery, London), The Goldfinch (1654), and The Sentry (1654).

Carel Fabritius
Self-portrait (c. 1645)
Born	Carel Pietersz. Fabritius baptised 27 February 1622 Middenbeemster, Dutch Republic
Died	12 October 1654 (aged 32) Delft, Dutch Republic
Education	Rembrandt
Movement	Delft School Dutch Golden Age Painting
Spouses	Aeltge Velthuys Agatha van Pruyssen

Biography

Carel Pietersz. Fabritius was born in February 1622 in Middenbeemster, a village in the ten-year-old Beemster polder in the Dutch Republic, and was baptized on 27 February of that year. He was the son of Pieter Carelsz., a painter and schoolteacher, and he had two younger brothers, Barent and Johannes, who also became painters.

Initially he worked as a carpenter (Latin: fabritius). In 1641 he married Aeltge Velthuys, who died in childbirth in 1643. In the early 1640s he studied at Rembrandt's studio in Amsterdam, along with his brother Barent. In 1650 he married the widow Agatha van Pruyssen. In the early 1650s he moved to Delft, and joined the Delft painters' guild in 1652.

Fabritius died young, caught in the explosion of the Delft gunpowder magazine on 12 October 1654, which destroyed a quarter of the city, along with his studio and many of his paintings. Only about a dozen paintings have survived. According to Houbraken, his student Mattias Spoors and the church deacon Simon Decker died with him, since they were working on a painting together at the time.

In a poem written by Arnold Bon to his memory, he is called Karel Faber.

Painting

Of all Rembrandt's pupils, Fabritius was the only one to develop his own artistic style. A typical Rembrandt portrait would have a plain dark background with the subject defined by spotlighting. In contrast, Fabritius' portraits feature delicately lit subjects against light-coloured, textured backgrounds. Moving away from the Renaissance focus on iconography, Fabritius became interested in the technical aspects of painting. He used cool colour harmonies to create shape in a luminous style of painting.

Fabritius was also interested in complex spatial effects, as can be seen in the exaggerated perspective of A View of Delft, with a Musical Instrument Seller's Stall (1652). He also showed excellent control of a heavily loaded brush, as in The Goldfinch (1654). All these qualities appear in the work of Vermeer and de Hooch, both also based in Delft; it is likely that Fabritius was a strong influence on them.

• 
  Portrait of Abraham de Potter (1649)
• 
  A View of Delft (1652) exploring an exaggerated, panoramic perspective
• 
  The Goldfinch (1654), showing Fabritius' use of cool colour harmonies, delicate lighting effects, and a light background
• 
  The Sentry (1654)
• 
  Young Man in a Fur Cap (1654), probably a self-portrait

List of works

• ca. 1640 The Beheading of John the Baptist, oil on canvas, 149 x 121 cm, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
• 1643 The Raising of Lazarus, oil on canvas, National Museum, Warsaw
• 1643 Hera Hiding During the Battle Between the Gods and the Giants, oil on canvas, Pushkin Museum, Moscow
• 1643/45 Hagar and the Angel, oil on canvas, 157.5 x 136 cm, The Leiden Collection New York
• c. 1644 Portrait of a Seated Woman with a Handkerchief, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
• c. 1645 Self-portrait, oil on panel, 65 x 49 cm, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
• 1645–47 Mercury and Aglauros oil on canvas, 72.4 x 91.1 cm, Museum of Fine Arts Boston
• 1646–1651 A Girl with a Broom, oil on canvas, 107.3 x 91.4 cm, signed as Rembrandt, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C
• 1649 Portrait of Abraham de Potter, oil on canvas, 68.5 x 57 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• 1652 A View of Delft, with a Musical Instrument Seller's Stall, oil on canvas on panel, 15.4 x 31.6 cm, National Gallery London
• 1654 The Goldfinch, oil on panel, Mauritshuis The Hague
• 1654 The Sentry, oil on canvas, 68 x 58 cm, Staatliches Museum Schwerin Schwerin
• 1654 Young Man in a Fur Cap, oil on canvas, 70.5 x 61.5 cm, National Gallery London (probably a self-portrait)

References

• Carel Fabritius 1622–1654. Het complete oeuvre Frederik J. Duparc, Ariane van Suchtelen, Gero Seelig. ISBN 978-90-400-8987-9
• The Oxford Dictionary of Art ISBN 0-19-280022-1
• Biography at Residenzgalerie Salzburg
• Olga's Gallery
• Adventure's in Cybersound interest in unusual perspectives.
• Cumming, Laura (2023). Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death. London: Chatto & Windus, ISBN 9781982181765; New York: Scribner, ISBN 9781982181741

External links

Media related to Carel Fabritius at Wikimedia Commons

• Carel Fabritius at Artcyclopedia
• Works and literature on Carel Fabritius
• Vermeer and The Delft School, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which includes material on Carel Fabritius