Giovanni Grevenbroeck detto il solfarolo (1650-1699), Attrib. - Battaglia in riva al mare con chiaro di luna

Giovanni Grevenbroeck, known as the Solfarolo (Netherlands, about 1650 – Milan, after 1699), was a Dutch painter of the Golden Century. Giovanni Grevenbroeck is the progenitor of a family of landscape painters originating from the Netherlands, mainly active in Italy. With the same surname are listed: Orazio Grevenbroeck (Milan, 1676 – Naples, 1739), Alessandro Grevenbroeck (late 17th century – Venice, after 1748) and Carlo Leopoldo Grevenbroeck (Milan, late 17th century – Naples, after 1757), regarded by critics as his direct descendants. The first worthy notice on the artist’s origins should be traced to De Boni, who refers to the painter in these terms: he came to Italy as a youth, and he was born in Germany around 1650. Some archival documents concerning his son Carlo Leopoldo reveal, incidentally, important pieces of the father Giovanni’s biography; from them one deduces the painter’s noble origins, traced to the house of Jülich, Italianized Guliers, as well as the indication of Rotterdam as his birthplace: Carlo Leopoldo Grevenbroeck, son of the late Illustrious Baron Giovanni De Consigniori of Guliers in the Flemish territories [5]; Carlo Leopoldo, Dutch-born, from the City of Milan, son of the late Illustrious Lord Count del Ponte Baron of Grevembrok, Dutch-born […] Giovanni native of Rotterdam [6]. After the apprenticeship completed in the Flemish lands, Giovanni Grevenbroeck, probably to complete his education, arrives in Italy, as, as various historians mention, he is listed among the dense ranks of – in many cases – semi-known Flemish painters stationed in Rome. The evidence of his Italian sojourn comes from Bertolotti’s publication (1880)[7][8], which collects news and documents drawn from Roman archival sources. Among them the scholar reports an extract from a court document, from which it emerges that the landscape painter was present in the Eternal City since August 1667, where he is referred to by the name Giov. Frangrefenbruch. Oil on panel is in excellent condition, and is almost executed by a miniaturist, with meticulous execution and with a frame measuring 42 cm by 37 cm.