Lodewijk Toeput
Lodewijk Toeput, called il Pozzoserrato[1] (c. 1540/1550 – between 1603 and 1605)[2][3][4][5][6] was a Flemish landscape painter and draftsman active in Italy.
[2] The early life of Lodewijk Toeput in his native Flanders is not documented and the date and place of his birth are not known with certainty.
Despite his residence in Treviso, Toeput kept in touch with Venice where he met with artistic personalities such as Jacopo Bassano, Hans von Aachen, members of the Sadeler family, Otto van Veen and Pieter de Jode I.
[13] One important assignment was for decorations for the Monte di Pietà, a communal pawnshop, for which Toeput created frescos of scenes from the Old and New Testament and parables alluding to the works of mercy.
In Italy, the painter was known as Ludovico Pozzoserrato, the literal translation into Italian of his Flemish name Toeput which can be read to mean ‘'Closed Well'’.
In the frescoes of the Villa Chiericati-Mugna, executed between 1587 and 1590, he developed a series of allegorical landscapes, which represent the months of the year, each recognizable by their astrological sign.
The series is complemented by a trompe-l'œil of a door that reveals a page with a dog, a painting above the fireplace with Apollo holding a lyre and friezes containing mythological figures along the walls.
Toeput's best known garden scene Concert in a villa courtyard Musei civici di Treviso) appears to draw inspiration from Crispijn van de Passe the Elder's engraving of Adolescentia Amori after a design by Toeput's presumed master Maerten de Vos.
[2] Toeput drew many biblical and mythological scenes, but was primarily a draftsman of cityscapes and panoramic landscapes.
His Panorama of Treviso and View of Aquapendente were engraved and included in volume V (1598) of Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg's six-volume atlas, the Civitates orbis terrarum (Cologne, 1572–1618).
He often placed an object such as a tree on the left or right side of his drawings in order to link the front and back of the composition.
