Henri-Joseph Van Blarenberghe

Henri-Joseph Van Blarenberghe (Lille, October 10, 1741 - Lille, December 1, 1826) was a French painter. Biography Henri-Joseph Van Blarenberghe descended from a family of painters, of which his father Louis-Nicolas Van Blarenberghe was the best known of the dynasty. His mother's name was Marie-Jeanne Bassecour, and his wife was Charlotte-Rosalie Damesne. The other painters of the same family were Joris Van Blarenberghe (1612-1670), Jacques-Guillaume Van Blarenberghe and Diane-Hélène Van Blarenberghe (1786-1853). During the reign of Louis XVI of France Henri-Joseph became a specialist of battle scenes, due to the fact that he was a military painter in the retinue of the French army, as was his father. He painted the military port of Brest. He also devoted himself to painting miniatures, to decorate boxes for smoking tobacco, made of wood or precious metals: gilded silver, gold, even gold and platinum. Excellent at capturing the details of clothing and decorations, he finished his little boxes with particular accuracy and grace. On these tiny enameled plaques he created gallant scenes, groups of characters dressed in Turkish style, women in unlikely dresses à la circassienne. An acolyte of these precious boxes is in the Wallace Collection (London).