EHRENBERG, Wilhelm Schubert van

In the second half of the seventeenth century, Flemish painters known as specialists in the field of church interiors, such as Van Ehrenberg, continued to use the rather artificial and exaggerated receding backgrounds which ultimately went back to Vredeman de Vries.

The Interior of an Imaginary Picture Gallery falls into the category of allegorical picture galleries, which can be considered a sub-category of the imaginary art gallery type. This composition depicts a large imaginary gallery in which are present a number of persons admiring and scrutinizing artworks and, on the right hand side, figures representing gods and allegorical figures.

The painting is a collaboration with each of the individual painters whose work is depicted in the painting and have signed their own work: Theodoor Boeyermans (Daughters of Cecrops and Erychtonius), Pieter Boel (Animal Piece), Jan Cossiers (Diana and Actaeon), Cornelis de Heem (Fruit Still-Life), Robert van den Hoecke (Winter Landscape), Philips Augustijn Immenraet (Italianate Landscape), Jacob Jordaens (Gyges and Kandaules and Allegory of Painting), Pieter Thijs (Adoration of the Shepherds), Lucas van Uden (Landscape) and the monogrammists missed PB (Fish Still Life) and PVI or PVH (Satyr and Nymph). Van Ehrenberg painted the architecture as well as the ceiling (which is made up of copies of Rubens’s works for the Carolus Borromeuskerk in Antwerp, later destroyed in a fire). The figures are probably by Charles Emmanuel Biset (1630–c. 1676).

In the second half of the seventeenth century, Flemish painters known as specialists in the field of church interiors, such as Van Ehrenberg, continued to use the rather artificial and exaggerated receding backgrounds which ultimately went back to Vredeman de Vries. There is in their work a firm preference for monumental Baroque interiors, especially that of the Jesuit church (Carolus Borromeuskerk) in Antwerp.

In the second half of the seventeenth century, Flemish painters known as specialists in the field of church interiors, such as Van Ehrenberg, continued to use the rather artificial and exaggerated receding backgrounds which ultimately went back to Vredeman de Vries. There is in their work a firm preference for monumental Baroque interiors, especially that of the Jesuit church (Carolus Borromeuskerk) in Antwerp.

In the second half of the seventeenth century, Flemish painters known as specialists in the field of church interiors, such as Van Ehrenberg, continued to use the rather artificial and exaggerated receding backgrounds which ultimately went back to Vredeman de Vries.