Artist Dirk Helmbreker (Born in 1633) has many aliases including: Teodoro Elembrech; Dirk Elembrech; Dirck Helmbreecker; Theodoor Helmbreker, to state just but a few. He was a Dutch Golden Age painter who specialized in Italianate landscapes. He was born in Haarlem and became a pupil of Pieter de Grebber. At a very young age, Helmbreker traveled to Rome, and that’s where he remained until his death in 1696. His paintings belong to the group of artists known as Houbraken or as the Bamboccianti, which is a specialization by Northern artists in small-scale genre scenes. The artist arrived in Italy in 1654, eventually, by the end of the decade, settling in Rome. Helmbreker and Willem Reuter, a Flemish painter, were members of the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon. Helmbreker’s art was influenced by Sébastien Bourdon.
His genre scenes tended to be more classical in inspiration than many their earlier low-life scenes; they are among the last generation of the Bamboccianti. By 1678, Helmbreker was with Frederick Moucheron in Paris where both of them were very active. Returning to Italy 3 years later, he worked in Florence, Rome and Turin. Ultimately, his art found great success with Italian collectors, and in 1695 he was commissioned by the Church of St. Julian of the Flemings in Rome to paint the main altar piece. Currently his art adorn the walls of many galleries and museums all over the world. He participated in many art shows and exhibitions, and this greatly increased the popularity of his art.
