Allegory of Touch - Otto van Veen (1556-1626) and workshop

Oil on oak panel

Period frame in carved wood with its original gilding, model with laurel leaves packages.

Total dimensions with frame : 50 x 42 cm

This allegory of touch is painted under the features of a young and very pretty lady of quality, richly dressed in a golden yellow dress under a vermilion red coat.
She is wearing a large piped drill and a large gold cross set with stones and decorated with pearls. She is leaning on an entablature with a landscape background.
In her right hand is a parrot that can be found in many paintings with the same subject.

Otto van Veen, known as Otto Venius or Otto Vaenius, was born in Leiden in 1556 and died in Brussels on May 6, 1626.
He adopted the Mannerist style and became a Flemish art theorist.
Working first with the Leyden artist Isaac Claesz van Swanenburgh, then in Liege, in 1574, with Dominicus Lampsonius, Otto van Veen then visited Italy for a long time (from 1577 to 1582) to remain forever a "Romanist" and a humanist as fervent as he was cultured, an admirer of Correggio in Parma, and directly influenced by the Zuccari in Rome...

After a short stay in Munich, he returned to the Netherlands in 1583, first to Liège in the service of the prince-bishop, then to Brussels as a court painter for Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma (who died in 1592). Around 1588-1589, he settled in Antwerp where he was soon admitted as a freemason (1594) and where he married. One of his main claims to fame is that he was Rubens' master and patron in Antwerp for a long period, from 1594 to 1598, fruitful years of apprenticeship that soon turned into a flattering and effective collaboration for Rubens. Highly regarded - the archduke appointed him, in 1612, keeper of the mint - Vaenius then settled in Brussels where he became, in 1620, a member of the painters' guild...

Excellent condition.