1606 -1688 · Frankfurt, Prague, Utrecht, Rome, Amsterdam, Vienna and Nuremberg

Cosmopolitan painter, portrait painter, decorator and art historian, Joachim von Sandrart connects the European workshops of the 17th century.

Joachim von Sandrart was born in Frankfurt in 1606 into a Calvinist family of Walloon origin. He received exceptionally mobile training: Sebastian Stoskopff in Frankfurt, Aegidius Sadeler in Prague, then Gerrit van Honthorst in Utrecht. He met Rubens and went to Italy in 1629. In Rome, he observed Antiquity and the New Baroque, frequented Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin, Andrea Sacchi and Pietro Testa, then traveled to Naples, Malta and Messina. This experience nourishes a painting capable of moving from court portrait to altarpiece, allegory to mythology. The portraits of Maximilian I of Bavaria and Pietro Corneliszoon Hooft combine resemblance, rank and culture. Jacob's Dream uses chiaroscuro and celestial diagonal to articulate terrestrial space and vision. Minerva and Saturn protect the Art and Science of Envy and Lies sums up his interest in scholarly allegory. Sandrart worked in the United Provinces, Bavaria, Austria and several German cities. He participated in the founding of the academies of Nuremberg and Augsburg. From the 1660s, writing became central. His Teutsche Academie, published between 1675 and 1680, brought together arts theory, artists' lives, descriptions of collections and antiquarian knowledge. Inspired by Vasari and Van Mander but enriched by his own encounters, it constitutes a major source on 17th century artistic Europe. Died in Nuremberg in 1688, Sandrart left a double work: images intended for churches, courts and collectors, and an art history based on direct experience. The "Joachim von Sandrart" selection notably compares Jacob's Dream and Minerva and Saturn protect Art and Science. His reading favors color.

Sandrart paints with the memory of his travels and writes with the eye of the practitioner: each portrait, allegory or biography belongs to the same European cartography of the arts.