Joost de Pape

Joos de Pape, also recorded as Josse, Joost, or Joducus, was born in Oudenaarde around 1606 or 1607, the son of Simon de Pape I. He entered the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as an apprentice in 1618–19 and achieved the rank of master in 1627–28. By 1635 he had relocated to Rome, where on 2 September that year he appears in the records of the Roman Guild of Saint Luke while living on the Via Babuino. In Rome he acted as provisore of the Brotherhood of San Giuliano, produced drawings after antique sculpture for Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, and executed two etchings after Annibale Carracci.

His sole surviving signed painting, Venus and Adonis, dated 1629 and now in the Rijksmuseum, is an oil on panel executed on Antwerp oak and branded with the city’s coat of arms on the reverse; X-radiography reveals that de Pape first began an entirely different composition, two seated soldiers in Roman dress, before abandoning it for the mythological scene. The work’s robust figures and warm palette reveal the strong influence of Peter Paul Rubens and, to a lesser degree, Gaspar de Crayer. De Pape died in Rome, reported dead on 21 January 1646.