Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/39

 A A R S E N S, c: ambaflador's fecretary at the Hague, he thereby clifcovered account we may fee, that Aarfens was a man of great abili- ties, and had an excellent turn for political negotiaiions : but vvhilft Du Maurier inveighs fo warmly againft this ft.iuTman, he lets us into a circumftance, which may teach us not to H;VC too much credit to his invt (Stives ; for he informs us, that there was an irreconcileable enmity betwixt his father and Aarfens. AARSENS, or AERSENS (PETER), called by the Italians Pictro Longo from his tallnels, was a celebrated Norizle painter, and born at Amfterdam in 1519. His father, who fa^'&J' was a ftocking-maker, meant to train him in his own com', i. ' way; but the mother, finding in him an inclination towards P rinted painting, was refolved that her fon (hould purfue his genius, j even though (he always were forced to fpin for her livelihood : and to this the good man her hu(band, we fuppofe for peace's fake, at length conferred. His firft mafter was Alart Claeller, an eminent painter in Amfterdam ; under whom he fo diftin- guifhed himfelf, that he foon engaged the attention of the great. When he was about eighteen, he went to Bofiuin Hainault, to view the pieces of feveral matters : thence to Antwerp, where he married, and entered into the company of painters. He excelled very particularly in reprefenting a kitchen : but indeed he excelled upon all kinds of fubjels. An altar-piece of his, viz. a crucifix, fetting forth an executioner breaking with an iron bar the legs of the thieves, &c, was prodigioufly admired. This noble piece was destroyed by the rabble in the time of the infurredion anno 1566, although the lady of Sonneveldt in Alckmaer offered 200 crowns for its redemp- tion, as the furious peafants were bringing it out of the church : but they tore it to pieces, and trod it under foot. What pain to an artift, to fee his mafter-piece demolifhed ! and indeed he afterwards complained of it to the populace in. terms of fuch feverity, ihat more than once they were going to murder him. He died in 1585, leaving three fens, who fucceeded in his profefljon. He had a mean afpet, which he did not amend by any attention to the exterior ; for he always appeared very meanly drefled. AARTGEN, or AERTGEN, a painter of merit, tvas the fon of a wool-comber, and born at Leyden in 1498. * s ab " ve * He worked at his father's trade till he was eighteen, and then, having difcovered a genius for defigning, he was placed with Cornelius Engelhechtz, under whom he made B 2, a con-
 * c the moft fecrec defigns of the French court." By this