Jacques Bellange (ca. 1575–1616)

• Jacques Bellange was an artist and printmaker from the Duchy of Lorraine (then independent but now part of France).
• None of his paintings are known to have survived, but the prints have been known to collectors since shortly after his death.
• He is recorded in 1595 as living "at present" in La Mothe; he had travelled to Nancy, where he took on an apprentice.
• In eight of Bellange's prints, his signature describes him as "eques" or "knight", but it seems clear that this title was not given by the Dukes of Lorraine.
• He appears employed as a court painter in Nancy in 1602, and thereafter appears regularly in the court accounts until 1616, the year of his death.
• After completing his first commission, to paint a room in the palace, he was taken on with a salary of 400 francs in 1603, twice what any previous court painter had been paid.
• Some jobs for the court attracted extra payments: in 1606 he repainted, for 1,200 francs, the Galerie des Cerfs, the main public space of the palace, used as a law court among other things.
• In 1612 he married Claude Bergeron, the 17-year-old daughter of a prominent Nancy apothecary, with whom he had three sons.
• The dowry was 6,000 francs, with a promise that the Bergerons' country house would pass to the couple.
• 47 or 48 etchings by Bellange survived, and along with a number of drawings these are possibly all that remain of his art today.

• Next