Louis de Caullery

He was likely born in Caulery, a small town on the Scheldt river about 18 kilometers south east of the city of Cambrai, at the time situated in the Habsburg Netherlands and now in France.

[2] In 1594 he was in Antwerp where he was registered with the local Guild of Saint Luke as the pupil of the prominent Flemish landscape painter Joos de Momper.

This hypothesis appeared to be supported by the fact that he painted various Italian subjects and his rather innovative use of colour in comparison to artists solely trained in Antwerp.

The Venetian, Florentine and Romanesque buildings and landscapes in his compositions are likely based on his knowledge of works by masters who did visit Italy.

Two of these are fully signed, the Carnival (c. 1615, Hamburger Kunsthalle) and the Party in an interior or The five senses (1620, Louvre collection, on display in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Cambrai).

A frequent theme was that of the indoor or outdoor banquet with large groups of elegant figures foreshadowing the fête champêtre (garden parties) scenes in later French painting.

The theme of the garden of love was linked to this and was also developed by other Flemish painters such as Rubens and Frans Francken the Elder.

[7] Under the influence of Italian models, his palette proved to be an innovation in Flanders: he used half tones, ochre-yellow, Veronese green and Burgundy red.

[6] In his architectural scenes the pictorial space and the settings draw direct inspiration from Hans Vredeman de Vries's designs in the publications Scenographia (1560), Perspective (1604) and Architectura (1507).

An example is the Holy family with angels playing music in which Abraham Govaerts painted the landscape and de Caullery the figures.