Paul Bril
Antwerp 1554 - Rome 1626

"Landscape with St. Francis"
Oil on copper. Measures: 19 x 24 cm

Bril was the most distinguished and the most innovative Flemish landscape painter of the late 16th century. Arriving in Italy in 1575, he spent his entire career in Rome where he worked for a series of Popes and cardinals. The theme of saints and hermits in landscapes was much favoured by Bril in the period 1590 - 1600. He painted a series of frescoes in S. Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome in 1599 with this theme.