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Photo: Painting, Self Portrait, 1719
Balthasar Denner (15 November 1685 – 14 April 1749); German painter, highly regarded as a portraitist. He painted mostly half-length and head-and-shoulders portraits and a few group portraits of families in interiors. Usually Denner concentrated on the face; clothes and paraphernalia were done by other painters or later his daughter. His chief peculiarity consisted in the fineness of his mechanical finish, which extended to depicting even the almost invisible furze of hair growing on smooth skin. He is particularly noted for his heads of old men and women.
...When he was 8 years old he had an accident and for the rest of his life he walked with a limp. His convalescence was slow and to cope with boredom Denner started to draw and copy paintings by Berchem and Bloemaert. His teacher was a Dutchman, Frans van Amama.
...began his career as a painter of miniatures. In 1709 he painted the 9-year-old Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and his sister in miniature; Denner was invited to Gottorp Castle and painted himself in the background of a group portrait of the ducal family.
...In 1720...he met with Adriaen van der Werff, and showed him his painting of an old woman. Van der Werff was impressed and could only compare the painting with the Mona Lisa.
...When he died, aged 63, in Rostock, there were 46 unfinished paintings in his studio. Staatliches Museum Schwerin ownes 75 portraits by Denner. His portrait of Georg Frideric Handel is at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Denner also painted the children of Barthold Heinrich Brockes, a poet from Hamburg, who was the librettist of the Brockes Passion. Denner had become friends with Johan van Gool, and had sent him his biography.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balthasar_Denner) undefined