🖌️🎨 The Master of Female Half-Figures

 🖌️🎨 The Master of Female Half-Figures was a Dutch artist (or group of artists) who worked in Antwerp during the Renaissance between 1525 and 1550.

The name was given in the 19th century to denote the creator (or creators) of a series of works consisting of 67 paintings, to which 40 more were later added.
The works were apparently created in a large workshop specializing in the production of small panels with half-length images of aristocratic women.
They depict mainly women with "pleasant" faces, often reading or playing music. One of the most famous series depicts three women playing in a "house concert".
According to experts, the large number of portraits and the commitment to one concept give the images an almost "industrial schematism".
The repetitive composition of the female figures distinguishes the artist from the style of Adriaen Isenbrandt or Ambrosius Benson.
However, the religious images of female half-figures attributed to the artist are close to the working methods and style of these two contemporaries. From this we can conclude that on the one hand the artist - like Benson - worked for church clients, perhaps in a traditional manner, but for secular clients he worked even more than Benson, according to his own, almost rigid "recipe for success". A larger workshop could have worked on the images.
The secular work of the artist of female half-figures shows the change of motifs in the Renaissance, which - in contrast to the Middle Ages - now emphasizes typical events and scenes from everyday life and fragmentary descriptions of basic Christian motifs.
The artist of female half-figures is almost a "genre painter", in the sense that he creates a series of paintings for the private market.

Source: tuttartpitturasculturapoesiamusica.