page_title: Michiel Sweerts
section_title: Early life and stay in Rome
hierarchical_section_title: Michiel Sweerts / Life / Early life and stay in Rome
context_page_description: Michiel Sweerts or Michael Sweerts was a Flemish painter and printmaker of the Baroque period, who is known for his allegorical and genre paintings, portraits and tronies. The artist led an itinerant life and worked in Rome, Brussels, Amsterdam, Persia and India.
  While in Rome Sweerts became linked to the group of Dutch and Flemish painters of low-life scenes known as the Bamboccianti. Sweerts' contributions to the Bamboccianti genre display generally greater stylistic mastery and social-philosophical sensitivity than the other artists working in this manner. While he was successful during his lifetime, Sweerts and his work fell into oblivion until he was rediscovered in the 20th century as one of the most intriguing and enigmatic artists of his time.
context_section_description: Michiel Sweerts was born in Brussels where he was baptized on 29 September 1618 in the St. Nicholas Church as the son of David Sweerts, a linen merchant, and Martina Ballu. Little is known about the artist's early life and nothing about his training.
  He arrived in Rome in 1646 where he remained active until 1656. In Rome he became soon linked to the circle of Flemish and Dutch painters associated with Pieter van Laer, who is considered the founder of the Bamboccianti.  By the time Sweerts arrived in Rome van Laer himself had already left the city. The Bamboccianti brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherlandish art with them to Italy. They created small cabinet paintings or etchings of the everyday life of the lower classes in Rome and its countryside.
  In Rome, Sweerts painted genre paintings in the style of the Bamboccianti as well as a series of canvases on the activities and training of painters in their studios, attending classes or working from live models. He resided near Santa Maria del Popolo.  In 1647, Sweerts became an associate (aggregato) of the Accademia di San Luca, a prestigious association of leading artists in Rome. Sweerts is also recorded as having connections with members of the Congregazione Artistica dei Virtuosi al Pantheon. The Congregazione was a corporation of artists who organised annual exhibitions of their own paintings on the metal railings in front of the Pantheon. There is no evidence that Sweerts became himself a member of the Virtuosi. Sweerts lived from 1646 to 1651 in the Via Margutta where many foreign artists resided. While in Rome, Sweerts was the teacher of Willem Reuter, another Flemish painter from Brussels who spent time in Rome where he was influenced by the Bamboccianti.
  Despite the fragmentary nature of evidence pertaining to his career in Rome, Sweerts evidently succeeded in creating for himself a sufficiently solid reputation to be invited to enter into the service of the ruling papal family, the Pamphili family, and in particular Prince Camillo Pamphilj, the nephew of the reigning Pope Innocent X.  He is said to have painted a portrait of Camillo Pamphilj. Sweerts also painted theatre decors for Camillo Pamphilj and purchased art for him as his agent. It is likely that his patron Prince Camillo Pamphilj involved Sweerts in the organization of an art academy in Rome. At the instigation of Camillo, the pope bestowed upon Sweerts the papal title of Cavaliere di Cristo (Knight of Christ), the same honor enjoyed by the likes of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini.
  It is during his time in Rome that Sweerts developed a lifelong relationship with the Deutz family, who were one of the most prominent trading families of Amsterdam. In 1651 Jean Deutz gave Sweerts a power of attorney to act on his behalf in a sale of silk. The Deutz brothers also purchased paintings of Sweerts through the art market in Italy. Sweerts further acted for the Deutzes as an agent on the Italian art market.  It is believed that the Portrait of Man with a Red Cloak (c. 1650, Wallace Collection) is in fact a portrait of Jean Deutz who was likely then in Rome on his grand tour.
caption: Double portrait
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