Philips Angel II

Philips Angel II or Philips Angel van Leiden (c. 1618 in Leiden – after 11 July 1664 in Batavia, Dutch East Indies) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, etcher, writer and colonial administrator.

[2] Nothing is known about his training, but some details of his life suggest he had been in contact with Rembrandt shortly before becoming a master painter.

He signed a document stating he was ceasing all activities as a painter (probably to relieve himself of the duty to pay dues to the guild) in 1645 and joined the Dutch East India Company.

As he failed to clear his name he was forced to leave the service of the Dutch East India Company.

Angel gave his lecture at a time when he and other painters in Leiden were seeking permission to establish a guild to protect their economic interests.

In this part Angel liberally borrows anecdotes on famous painters from antiquity up to the 17th century from van Mander's Schilder-boeck.

The second part of the booklet deals with the wide range of skills that a painter must master to excel.

He argues that light and shadow must be divided so that even things that appear difficult to imitate with brush and paint seem very real.

His appreciation for Gerard Dou, who had already started to concentrate mainly on paintings of interiors and tronies is certainly no less than that for Rembrandt and Jan Lievens.