Theobald Michau

Theobald Michau is regarded as one of the most significant successors to the great Flemish masters such as Jan Brueghel the Elder and David Teniers the Younger. He trained under Lucas Achtschellinck in Brussels. In 1698, he was admitted to the Brussels Painters’ Guild and in 1710 was appointed a member of the Guild in Antwerp. Michau was already a sought-after landscape painter during his lifetime. His prominent clients included, among others, the Governor of the Netherlands, Charles de Lorraine. In his works, atmospheric landscape painting and detailed genre painting merge to form a harmonious whole. Particularly characteristic of Michau is his delicate, glazed painting style and the use of a warm colour palette, which idealises rural life whilst rendering it with meticulous detail.