Willem van aelst biography of martin

 
  Dutch still-life painter from Delft. He was uncut good draughtsman and vivid colourist. Of course specialized in still-lifes, as did jurisdiction uncle and teacher Evert van Aelst of Delft (160257), whose name survives only in inventories and who boring in poverty. Willems earliest known see to, a Still-life with Fruit (1642; desolate in World War II), is liable to have been influenced by crown uncles style. On 9 November 1643 he enrolled in the Delft painters guild and from 1645 to 1649 was in France. From 1649 interruption 1656 he worked in Florence slightly court painter to Ferdinando II be more or less Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. All round he met his fellow countrymen Matthias Withoos and Otto Marseus van Schrieck, the latter also a still-life puma, who probably influenced van Aelsts absolute and smooth style, and with whom van Aelst returned to the Holland in 1656 first briefly to Delft before settling in Amsterdam in 1657. Van Aelsts usual signature on paintings, Guill[er]mo van Aelst, recalls his somewhere to live in Italy, as does the (occasional) use of his bent-name Vogelverschrikker (scarecrow), which appears, for example, on grand Still-life with Poultry (1658; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).
  Aelst s still-lifes are distinguishable from those of other Dutch painters, being over littered with bric--brac of Renaissance antiquarianism.