page_title: Frans Geffels
section_title: Paintings
hierarchical_section_title: Frans Geffels / Paintings
context_page_description: Frans Geffels, known in Italy as Francesco Geffels was a Flemish painter, printmaker, architect, stage designer and designer of ephemeral structures for solemn and festive occasions. After training in his native Antwerp, he was mainly active in Mantua, where he was prefetto delle fabbriche to the Duke, a role that gave him the direction of the artistic and construction activities undertaken by the Ducal court. He worked also on projects for the local aristocratic class of Mantua. In addition, he completed projects for the Liechtenstein princes and for the imperial court in Vienna.
  He was both a canvas and fresco painter. He created portraits, history subjects, military scenes, architectural scenes and genre art, in particular merry companies. Geffels is mainly remembered as the designer of some of the key examples of Baroque architecture in Mantua.
context_section_description: He was both a canvas and fresco painter. He painted portraits, history subjects, military scenes, architectural scenes and genre scenes such as merry companies.  He is in particular known for his perspective views of two important military battles against Turkish forces: the Relief of Vienna (Vienna Museum at Karlsplatz) and the Retaking of Buda (Hungarian National Museum).  Both paintings provide a bird's eye view of the military action with a view of the besieged city in the distance.  Both paintings have in the lower left corner a legend which describe key locations in the battle scene which are each identified by a number in the painting.  For the Retaking of Buda Geffels based his topographically correct view on an extremely rare print engraved by the Vienna-based engravers Johann Martin Lerch and Johann Jakob Hofmann after a drawing by the Dutch artist Justus van den Nypoort.  For the Relief of Vienna Geffels relied on a print engraved by Johann Jakob Hofmann after a design by Justus van den Nypoort published soon after the events happened.
  Two portraits of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga di Nevers have been attributed to Geffels. The portrait in the Palazzo d'Arco in Mantua has been attributed on the basis of a print made after the portrait which identifies Geffels as the designer.  The second portrait is in the Palazzo Sordi. A pendant to this picture depicts the Duke's wife.  The portrait shows the Duke at full length with a page on his side who is handing him a letter on a pewter plate. The Duke is wearing a heavy blue coat. The face is rendered with very recognizable features and an absent expression. 
  Geffels was also a genre painter. A number of merry companies of elegant figures engaging in play, dance, dinner or music playing are attributed to Geffels.   His Dinner Party on a Terrace, (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1660s) was previously attributed to the Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch.  Geffels also painted some paintings of the humbler classes of society, which recalls the paintings of the Bamboccianti.  An example is the Antique ruins with a Roma family (Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest), 1660s). It shows some figures who may be Romani people possibly preparing a meal and a shepherd with a herd inside a tunnel-like grotto with Antique architectural elements. The iconographic interpretation of the work is not entirely clear. The inscription 'TEMPORALE AET (E) RNITAS' (temporary eternity) can be read on the relief of the pedestal of a tomb depicted on the left. This may be a reference to the theme of vanitas, i.e. the reflection on the transience of earthly things in general.  Below the text there is a relief possibly depicting a sacrificial scene: a female figure is standing on a pedestal with her eyes looking up while at her feet children hold up a garland and the face of an old bearded man is placed between the two children.  The tunnel in the picture is likely not an existing Antique structure but was created by combining motifs from different locations, which Geffels may have known through print publications. The work with its complex perspective of the tunnel grotto demonstrates how Geffels was able to put his skill as an architect and theatrical designer to good use in his paintings. 
  Finally, Geffels also painted religious subjects. He painted an Altarpiece of the Christian Doctrine in the church of San Martino in Mantua. He further painted on the ceiling of a room in the Palazzo Valenti-Gonzaga a series of frescoes on the theme of the Prodigal Son.
caption: Elegant figures merrymaking in an interior
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