Bartholomäus Strobel the younger
German, 1591-1650
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Bartholomeus Strobel the Younger or Bartholomäus in German or Bartlomiej in Polish was a Baroque painter from Silesia, who worked in Prague, Silesia, and finally Poland, where he emigrated to escape the disruption of the Thirty Years War.
He painted portraits and religious works for the complicated ruling elites of the region and religious orders. His largest and most impressive painting, the Feast of Herod with the Beheading of St John the Baptist in the Museo del Prado, combines an ostensible religious subject with a lavish depiction of a contemporary court banquet and many portraits of leading figures in Central Europe, whose identification remains uncertain.
Two much smaller works, a Feast of Herod now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, and Daniel and Cyrus before the Idol Bel, now National Museum, Warsaw, repeat the distinctive formula of lavish and rather decadent feasting, placed in a complicated picture space with recessed areas at the back, and with many of the figures wearing fantasy versions of contemporary costume.
