Raden Saleh, a Javanese nobleman, was
the first native of Java to master European painting methods. He was
first trained, in Bogor, by the Belgian artist A. J. Payen. Payen
persuaded the Dutch colonial government to send Raden to the Netherlands
for further study in art. He arrived in Europe in 1829 where he
continued his studies under Cornelius Kruseman and Andries Schelfhout.
Kruseman
helped train the young artist in portraiture, and he later worked in
various European countries. In 1839 he began a five year stay in the
court of Ernst I, Grand Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and it was there that
he gained in status.
Working
with the artist Schelfhout, Raden studied scenic painting, and visited
major European cities and also Algeria. In the Hague, a lion tamer
allowed Raden Saleh to study his lion, and the resulting paintings
brought the artist fame. Raden Saleh's works -- including many of his
animal paintings -- were exhibited in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, but
most of these works were later lost in a 1931 fire at the Dutch Pavilion
of a Paris exhibition.
Raden
Saleh returned to Indonesia in 1851, and remained there for twenty
years, building a Neogothic palace in Batavia. He worked as a
conservator for the colonial government's art collection, and he also
continued executing portraits of Javanese aristrocracy and Javanese
landscapes. He died in Bogor on April 23, 1880 after returning from a
four year stay in Germany, Italy and France.
Please email us at geringerart@yahoo.com if you have a work by Raden Saleh that you would like to offer for sale.
Below: A video trailer from the Raden Saleh exhibition:
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