David Bailly
1584 - 1657
David Bailly is Dutch baroque painter. He was the son of a Flemish immigrant, calligrapher and fencing master, Peter Bailly. David was pupil of his father and the copper engraver Jacques de Gheyn. He first apprenticed to a local painter in.
David Bailly studied portraiture with Cornelis van der Voort in Amsterdam and made numerous trips abroad and on his return voyage he probably worked for several German princes including the Duke of Brunswick. He worked as a journeyman in Hamburg and then traveled to Venice and Rome in 1609 at the age of twenty-five.
Upon his return to the Netherlands in 1613, Bailly began painting still-life subjects (such as the famous vanities painting of 1651). He established himself as a painter of vanities still lives and portraits.
In his painted portraits, Bailly depicted attractive and expressive subjects in lively domestic settings. His vanities paintings included the usual symbols of the transience and impermanence of human life, such as skulls, flowers, and burning or extinguished candles. He also included portraits of himself in these paintings, meaning to illustrate the ephemeral nature of his own artistic accomplishments.
Many of the latter were small drawings of his contemporaries at the University of Leiden. He also created a number of self-portraits. Bailly was also an accomplished draughtsman who not only used his drawings as preparations for engravings but also sometimes displayed them as works of art.
Bailly taught his nephews Harmen and Pieter Steenwyck.
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