Hieronymus Galle
Hieronymus Galle (1625–1679) was a Flemish painter from Antwerp who specialized in fruit and flower still lifes, hunting scenes, and garland paintings. Garland paintings show a central image surrounded by a garland of flowers or fruit, often made with a collaborator.
Galle came from a notable family; his father Huibrecht Galle was Antwerp’s envoy to Brussels. He studied with Abraham Hack, and Hack also taught Jan van den Hecke. He joined the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1636 and became a master in 1645–46. He travelled to Italy and spent time in Rome in 1661–1662, sharing lodgings with Franciscus de Neve II. After Rome, he signed his works as Girolimo. The last records place him in Antwerp in 1679, though he may also have worked in Brussels, where he joined the local guild.
Galle is best known for flower and fruit still lifes, but he also painted hunting pieces and many garland paintings. He created vanitas paintings as well. About 15 signed works dated 1643–1680 are known. Early in his career he followed Daniel Seghers and Jan Brueghel the Elder, but his style used more light and shadow and denser, more modern-looking floral arrangements, often in salmon-pink tones. He absorbed Roman still-life traditions and was influenced by artists such as Abraham Brueghel, Paolo Porpora, and Michelangelo di Campidoglio.
One vanitas by Galle is in the Museum of Western and Oriental Art in Kyiv. He made garland paintings, a genre developed in Antwerp by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Cardinal Federico Borromeo, often tied to Counter-Reformation imagery and devotion to Mary, though later works sometimes show secular themes. Garland paintings usually involve a collaboration between a flower painter and a figure painter. Galle worked with Cornelis Schut on a garland painting featuring a trompe l’oeil Pietà framed by flowers, which was sold at Christie’s in 2005. He likely influenced the French painter Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer, who spent time in Antwerp.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:12 (CET).