Van LAER Pieter

‘il Bamboccio’ (Haarlem 1599 – Rome 1642)

Dutch painter and engraver, second son of Jacob Claesz Bodding and Magdalena Heyns, a couple of teachers of a private school, founded by the writer and publisher Peeter Heyns, brother of Magdalena.
After a first artistic training in the Mannerist environment of Haarlem, Pieter Van Laer settled in Rome from 1625 to 1638 where he received the nickname of Bamboccio, probably for his boyish features.
Here he introduced the Dutch style of genre representations, starting, thanks also to the engravings derived from his paintings, to an artistic current of narrative vein with careful and minute descriptions of popular life.
Typical subjects of the school of Van Laer were those who, in the opulent Papal Rome, lived on the margins of society as ruffians, thieves, gamblers, drunkards, prostitutes and beggars, often in scenes set among ruins in contrast with the Rome of Imperial age. To this artistic movement many Italian, Flemish and Dutch masters joined in Rome in the mid-seventeenth century: they were called “Bamboccianti” because they were considered, in this choice, followers of Van Laer.
Many of his works, such as street scenes and costumes, are found not only in the Spada and Corsini galleries in Rome, but also in several museums in Europe.