Painting Detail
Granida and DaifiloArtist: Jacob Adriaensz Backer
Medium: Painting, Oil on canvas, 125x161.5 cm
Date: c. 1635
Genre: Literary, History
Source: Gatchina Palace, 1925
Jacob Adriaensz Backer (1609 - 27 August 1651) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He produced about 140 paintings in twenty years, including portraits, religious subjects, and mythological paintings. In his style he was influenced by Wybrand de Geest, Rubens and Abraham Bloemaert. He is also noted for his drawings of male and female nudes.
Besides being an important portrait painter - some 70 portraits can be attributed to him with certainty - Backer was an excellent painter of religious and mythological paintings. He was especially interested in pastoral subjects, themes from contemporary history, like Granida and Daifilo, and the huge Crowning of Mirtillo from 1641 in the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu.