The Ancient

The ancient, very rare tempera-varnish layer technique

of the European Still Life Paintings of the 17^th and 18^th century

I performed an intensive research of about 10 years in public museums throughout Europe, private libraries, with private art collections, antiquarian bookstores and university archives, in order to rediscover the vanished ancient technique of the famous Dutch and Flemish Old Masters of still life paintings of the 17th and 18th century. This technique is so very unique and such paintings of these genius Masters of about 1650 - 1800 were highly sought after by nobles, the wealthy art collectors and the high society throughout the world at that time of these centuries.

Compared to a commonly practiced wet-in-wet oil painting, oil of which dries to a dull appearance, the colossal difference is in the outstanding effect of this tempera-varnish-layer-technique. Varnish dries to a high gloss appearance and, after several layers, this technique creates a depth of light. Thus, the depth of light creates the illusion that every subject glows from within and gives the composition a three dimensional appearance of unsurpassed crispness and brilliance of colors.

It takes me about ten times as long as a commonly practiced oil painting and demands much more concentration and patience, but the effect is immense and overwhelms even a layman.

I love bringing the tradition of our Old Masters back to life with my own creations and I believe that classic tradition has never gone out of style and never will be. Fine art is a fundamental element of our culture and education, and I am bringing back to life this ancient technique of the Old Masters of still life paintings.

Today, the antique paintings of these genius Old Dutch and Flemish Masters can be found in all major museums world-wide and are an important part of all precious private collections in the world. They are seldom offered for sale and if so, these works achieve highest prices in the most prestigious auctions world-wide. This technique, that the Old Masters used, is the reason why even to date, these up to 350 years old paintings still look radiant, crisp and fresh in their quality, as though just painted yesterday.

Various reasons, such as wars, loss of colonies, economical collapses, industrial revolution in the late 18th century, caused the extinction of performance and consequently knowledge of this technique. The Old Masters never thought of writing books or making notes about their know-how, so there is almost no original source to learn from about this very extraordinary technique which keeps these masterful works so radiantly alive.
That is the reason, why it took me such a long time of research and experimenting in practice, before I found their long lost technique.

In pursuit of perfection, my goal is to offer the discriminating collector a work of art of unrivalled quality.

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