Louis Finson
He is known for being the co-owner together with his fellow Flemish painter and business partner Abraham Vinck of two paintings by Caravaggio, possibly including the Judith Beheading Holofernes rediscovered in Toulouse in 2014.
Jacob Finson was originally documented as a cloth-painter (cleerscryver) or house painter (huusscruyver), an artisan who painted textiles and wall paper, but also statues.
In the second half of the 16th century the Habsburg Netherlands were going through a period of violent religious conflict which had a heavy toll on the civil population.
This likely caused the Finson family to leave Bruges in 1585 to settle in the town of Veere, on the island of Walcheren in the province of Zeeland.
[5] In Naples he befriended fellow Flemish painter and art dealer, Abraham Vinck, with whom he shared for some time a workshop and also a residence.
[5] It is likely that Finson and Vinck offered Caravaggio refuge when he arrived in Naples after fleeing Rome following his killing of a rival painter in a brawl.
On 24 August 1612 Finson received a final payment for an Annunciation made for the church of Saint Thomas of Aquino in Naples (now in the Museo di Capodimonte).
[8] The French scientist and intellectual Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, who was also a great friend of Rubens, became acquainted with Finson and was an admirer of his work.
[9] He gathered around him what has been called a 'caravaggesque workshop of Southern France' which included artists like Louis Finson, Martin Hermann Faber, Trophime Bigot and others.
Peiresc was an avid art collector and relied on Finson's contacts in Italy to acquire two works of Caravaggio from the Pasqualini family of Rome.
During his stay in France Finson was together with his partner Martin Hermann Faber in the possession of nine original works of Caravaggio.
[5] A Saint John the Baptist preparing himself for his martyrdom in a private collection was attributed to Finson in 2019 and is dated to approximately 1607.
The David and Bathsheba and the Adam and Eve show the fusion of his Flemish training and the naturalist style arising in Naples under the influence of Caravaggio.
The first painting recalls some of the stylistic characteristics of the work of Jacob de Backer in particular in the drawing of the bare shoulders of the servant of Bathsheba.
Packed with action, using powerful colours and strong lighting effects the work shows the influence of Caravaggio.
[4] Finson made more powerful works under the influence of Caravaggio such as the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (Dorotheum Vienna sale of 24 April 2018 lot 91).
The portraits depicting the artists muscular, semi-nude upper bodies have a certain grotesque flavor and evoke the mocking self-portraits by Caravaggio such as the Young Sick Bacchus (c. 1593, Galleria Borghese, Rome).
He frequently quotes from Caravaggio within complex architectural settings, with figures that are always a little rigid, arranged in postures that accentuate their musculature, the bending of limbs and the crossing of the hands.
[4] It is possible that during his last few years in Amsterdam he created paintings such as the Musical company (Allegory of the five senses) (Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum) which treats a theme that was popular in the Northern Netherlands at that time.
