Jan Berents
Dutch, 1679-1733
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Jan Berents was born in the Hague, the son of an immigrant from Hamburg. Little is known about him, but his occupation is given as a miniature painter and mathematician in his signature on the base of the Getty's own Winter Landscape with Numerous Figures on a Frozen River. Berents created "genre scenes," including winter landscapes, like many of his predecessors such as Molijn, van Battem, and Avercamp. Recent scholarship traces several paintings, drawings and gouaches to him that are copies after paintings, prints, and maps by other artists. His detailed work provides us with an example of how Dutch artists of this period imitated the works of their predecessors.