Lot 11: Companion Pieces: Lions and Bears

Johann Melchior Roos, Heidelberg 1663 - Kassel 1731 Companion Pieces: Lions and Bears, Oil/canvas, 32 x 39 cm a. 31,5 x 39,5 cm, each sign. a. dat. J. Roos fec AD 1729, some rest., relined. - German animal painter from a dynasty of artists. After being taught by his father Johann Heinrich R. the young artist went to Den Haag in 1684. 1686-89 he was with his brother Philipp Peter in Rome or Tivoli. Back in Germany he lived in Nuremberg, Heidelber a. Switzerland, but most of the time in Frankfurt where he also developed into a sought-after portrait painter. R. did in poverty in Kassel. - Mus.: Amsterdam, Berlin (Kupferstichkab.), London (Brit. Mus.), Brunswick (Herzog-Anton-Ulrich-Mus.), Frankfurt (Städel), Dresden a. others. - Lit.: Thieme-Becker, H. Jedding: Johann Heinrich Roos, Werke einer Pfälzer Tiermalerfamilie, Mainz 1998.