At the Blacksmith's

Egbert van der Poel

Basic information

ID: Ж-1962
Author: Egbert van der Poel
Name: At the Blacksmith's
Date of creation: 17th c.
Technique: oil painting
Material: wood oil
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 36.3 x 49

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: genre art
Plot: At the blacksmith's
Provenance: Collection of Lviv City Gallery
Exposition: Potocki Palace

Information about author

Author: Egbert van der Poel
Artist's lifetime: 1621–1664
Country: Holland
Biography: Egbert van der Poel (1621–1664) was a Dutch painter. Little information about the artist has been preserved: he was born into a jeweller's family and received training in painting from Esaias van de Velde and Aert van der Neer. In the Guild of Saint Luke records (1650), Poel is mentioned as a landscape painter. He was married, had three daughters and a son. Egbert van der Poel passed away at the age of 43. The artist depicted rural courtyards, landscapes, and genre scenes in his early works. The 1654 gunpowder explosion in Delft influenced all of Poel's later art. About twenty of his works depicting this event have been preserved. He was considered the best artist to portray fire.

Object description

The painting depicts three blacksmiths in a dark forge, illuminated by the hearth. On the right, two men observe their work. Egbert van der Poel belonged to artists of the Dutch Golden Age, whose artworks were characterised by intimate nature. His paintings are small in size, with an explicit precision of details and a harmony of light nuances. In his work, the author presents an idealised view of daily life rather than trying to capture the difficulties faced by the lives of regular people. His paintings were commissioned mainly by townspeople in the Netherlands.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

At the Blacksmith's

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