Nicola or Nicolino or Niccolino van Houbraken, also known as Nicolino Vanderbrach da Messina and Nicola Messinese (1660 – 1723) was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque who was of Flemish descent. He specialized in paintings depicting playful arrangements of fruits, vegetables, vegetation, animals, game in interiors or in forests. He also painted allegories and garland paintings. His work was appreciated by the Medici court in Florence.
Life
Nicola was born in Messina to a Flemish father and a local mother. Nicola's father, Ettore (or Hector, died 1723), and his grandfather, Joannes (Giovanni) van Houbraken (Houbracken) (originally from Antwerp), were both history painters and art dealers. Joannes van Houbraken was likely born in Antwerp around 1600 and had moved to Italy around 1620 where he established himself in Messina. He later returned to Antwerp from which he engaged in trade with Italy in paintings and painting materials. Nicola's father is believed to have been born in Antwerp. He returned to Messina where he married the daughter of Nicola Francesco Maffei, an architect. He was also active as a painter and art dealer but his oeuvre is unknown. After Nicola's birth the family remained in Messina until they left it for Livorno in 1674 following the Messina revolt against Spanish rule.
Nicola became a successful still life painter, who worked for local patrons and also sent works to all parts of the country. His works were appreciated by the court of the Medici who were then the rulers over Livorno. The Medici were known for their passion for flowers, a passion that had its origins in the collection of roses and carnations of Cosimo de' Medici and Ferdinando II. The Grand Duke requested Nicola to send him a portrait of himself for his gallery of self-portraits in the Galleria dell'Accademia.
Nicola married Caterina Valsisi with whom he had a daughter named Maria Teresa. The daughter also studied art and died in 1765 in Livorno. In 1706 and 1724 he exhibited some of his works in the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence. In 1704, 1706 and 1729 his works were exhibited in the Santissima Annunziata in Florence.
He died in Livorno between 1724 and 1733.
Work
General
He specialized in paintings depicting playful arrangements of fruits, vegetables, vegetation, animals and game set in interiors and forests. He also painted garland paintings and allegorical scenes. His forest still lifes continue the tradition of the works of Otto Marseus van Schrieck, who was one of the first practitioners of this genre. As van Houbraken only rarely put his monogram on his paintings, it has been a difficult task to put together his oeuvre as we well as to confirm the chronology. It is assumed that his darker paintings with the most obvious symbolic connotations were creations from his early career.
Characteristic of the artist's style are the rapid touches of light imprinted on tiny leaves and the bold brushstrokes which depict the flowers in a neat manner so that they are set off from the dark background. Nicola displayed a precision and technical mastery in portraying different botanical species with extreme realism and naturalness. This allows scholars to distinguish between the different species that he depicts. The floral repertoire presented so lucidly in the painting makes van Houbraken an "expert florist". Nicola was particularly known for his paintings depicting herbs and vegetation, Together with the thistles, exotic species known as the amaranthus tricolor is one of the most recurring flower species in his oeuvre. It appears in twelve of the artist's works and thus functions as a kind of unmistakable acronym for his paintings. His compositions are rich in charm and a chromatic range with a preference for icy and crystalline tones, recalling the work of Abraham Brueghel. His still lifes also reflect the influence of contemporary Tuscan production of the Florentine and Lucca school of Bartolomeo Bimbi and Andrea Scacciati.
He is known to have collaborated with specialist landscape and figure painters on works to which he contributed the still life elements and the collaborator the landscape and figures. It is known he worked with three other artists on a Landscape with hermits, formerly in the Gherardesca Collection. In this work Alessandro Magnasco painted the figures, Marco Ricci the landscape, the unknown Bianchi di Livorno the stones and Nicola van Houbraken the herbs.