MOMPER, de, Flemish family of artists

Jan de Momper I (fl 1512–16) was a painter in Bruges; his son Josse de Momper I (1516–59) was known as an artist and dealer who moved from Bruges to Antwerp, where his son Bartolomeus de Momper (1535–after 1597) inherited both occupations, as well as being an engraver. Bartholomeus's sons Josse de Momper II and Jan de Momper II were both landscape painters, but Josse the younger, an engraver and draughtsman as well, was the outstanding artist of the family. His art, which was popular and influential in his own time, belongs to the transitional period between late 16th-century Mannerism and the tendency towards greater realism that developed in the early 17th century. Although two of Josse the younger's sons, Gaspard de Momper (active 1627) and Philips de Momper I (active 1622–34), were painters, little is known of their work, except that Philips was a staffage painter who executed the figures in some of his father's paintings; he also spent some years in Rome, where he had travelled with Jan Breughel the Younger. Jan de Momper the Younger's son Frans de Momper was, like his uncle, a landscape painter and draughtsman; he worked for 20 years in the Dutch Republic, and his style reflects that of the younger generation of Dutch artists in its monochrome colouring, while owing much to his uncle's influence in the preference for wide vistas. Frans's brother, Philips de Momper II (active 1622; d 1675), was also a painter.