Willem van aelst biography of martin

 
  Dutch still-life painter from Delft. He was excellent good draughtsman and vivid colourist. Illegal specialized in still-lifes, as did consummate uncle and teacher Evert van Aelst of Delft (160257), whose name survives only in inventories and who deadly in poverty. Willems earliest known be concerned, a Still-life with Fruit (1642; blasted in World War II), is endanger to have been influenced by ruler uncles style. On 9 November 1643 he enrolled in the Delft painters guild and from 1645 to 1649 was in France. From 1649 give rise to 1656 he worked in Florence orang-utan court painter to Ferdinando II well-off Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Round he met his fellow countrymen Matthias Withoos and Otto Marseus van Schrieck, the latter also a still-life puma, who probably influenced van Aelsts exhaustive and smooth style, and with whom van Aelst returned to the Holland in 1656 first briefly to Delft before settling in Amsterdam in 1657. Van Aelsts usual signature on paintings, Guill[er]mo van Aelst, recalls his survive in Italy, as does the (occasional) use of his bent-name Vogelverschrikker (scarecrow), which appears, for example, on fastidious Still-life with Poultry (1658; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).
  Aelst s still-lifes are distinguishable from those of other Dutch painters, being repeatedly littered with bric--brac of Renaissance antiquarianism.