Isac Vromans

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Snake eating newly hatched bird out of a nest among flowers in a forest floor with a frog, mouse and insects, 1703

Isac Vromans (1658–1706), was a Dutch Golden Age painter.

Biography[edit]

He was probably born in Delft as the son of Pieter Abrahamsz Vromans and Maria Elseviers.[1] Though his parents were not artists, he was related to other Delft painters of the Vromans name such as Jacobus Vromans and Pieter Vromans.

According to the RKD he became a follower of Otto Marseus van Schrieck, and earned the nickname "slangenschilder" or snake painter.[2] From 1688 to 1692 he was a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Schiedam, then he moved to the Hague before being last registered in Den Bosch in 1706.[2]

According to a 5-page biography by Jacob Campo Weyerman, who didn't know his first name or place of birth, he was born in 1658.[3] Weyerman included a detailed description of one of his paintings, mentioning that he painted a nest on a forest floor with newly hatched chicks threatened by a snake. The mother bird was defending her nest and one chick stuck its head among the twigs, one joined its mother in a fight and a third attempted to flee. Weyerman also mentioned three stories about Vroman becoming a hermit on the heath and wearing nothing but sheepskins, building a flying machine and breaking a leg, and making an elixir from milk that spoiled from the summer heat.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Isaack Pietersz Vromans on Delft historical website
  2. ^ a b Isac Vromans in the RKD
  3. ^ Volume III, page 260 of The Lives of Dutch painters and paintresses by Weyerman