Balthasar van den Bossche
Balthasar van den Bossche (1681–1715) was a Flemish painter who is mainly known for his wide range of genre subjects and occasional portraits.
Balthasar van den Bossche was born in Antwerp where he studied under the Flemish genre painter Gerard Thomas, an artist who specialized in paintings of studio and picture gallery interiors.
[3] While van den Bossche’s works include the occasional individual and group portrait, the bulk of his output explored the various genre subjects that had been introduced in Flemish and Dutch painting in the 17th century.
He shared the same preference for depicting luxurious bourgeois rooms and conversation pieces, that showcased his patrons' social superiority.
His collaborations with Pieter van Bloemen (an animal specialist) and Jacob Balthasar Peeters (an architectural painter) are documented.
[5] Van den Bossche gained a reputation with his representations of artist studio interiors and art collector galleries.
The earliest works in this genre depicted art objects together with other items such as scientific instruments or peculiar natural specimens.
[7] The later development of the genre to which van den Bossche contributed depicted the figures in the gallery paintings in a manner which emphasised that they formed part of an elite with privileged knowledge of art.
His gallery paintings thus were a medium to accentuate the notion that the powers of discernment associated with connoisseurship are socially superior to or more desirable than other forms of knowledge.
The view of the public towards practitioners of either craft was ambivalent and physicians and alchemists were regarded either as persons seriously committed to the pursuit of knowledge or as charlatans and quacks using deception to seek material gain.
While alchemists were mainly concerned with transmutation of base metals into more noble ones, their endeavors were wider and also involved the use of their techniques to diagnose or cure people (the so-called 'iatrochemistry', which aimed to provide chemical solutions to diseases and medical ailments).
[10] The depictions of van den Bossche of the theme of the uroscopy do not appear to criticise the iatrochemist but rather show him as a person to whom the patients come in the confidence that he is a man of knowledge.
Guardroom scenes often included mercenaries and prostitutes dividing booty, harassing captives or indulging in other forms of reprehensible activities.
