Collector of Art
Granvelle had a famous art collection, which partly featured the favourite artists of his Habsburg patrons, such as Titian and Leone Leoni, but also included a number of works by Pieter Brueghel, as well as a significant collection inherited from his father. Brueghel's friend, the sculptor Jacques Jonghelinck (brother of Brueghel's biggest patron) had a studio in Granvelle's palace in Brussels. Whilst in the Netherlands, he "discovered" Antonis Mor and introduced him to the Madrid court, and he also patronised Giambologna and arranged his first visit to Italy. At his death the collection was inherited by his nephew, who was pressured by Rudolf II, the very acquisitive Austrian Habsburg Emperor, to sell the finest pieces to him, which in 1597 he very reluctantly did, protesting that the price offered for thirty-three works was not enough even for six, and less than he had recently refused from Cardinal Farnese for Dürer's Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand alone. The arrangements were handled by Hans von Aachen. Most of these pieces are now in Vienna or Madrid, including Titian's Venus with an Organ-player, Giambologna's copy of the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, tapestries after cartoons by Hieronymus Bosch and a bust of Charles V by Leoni.
Though he was painted by Titian and Mor, more famous than any portrait of Granvelle himself is the portrait of his dwarf and his mastiff by Mor, now at the Musée du Louvre. which perhaps initiated the Spanish tradition of portraits of court dwarves. The Flemish Renaissance humanist Justus Lipsius was Granvelle's secretary for a period in Rome. He also corresponded with the composers Lassus and Adrian Willaert He had a magnificent library, some of which remains at Besançon.
Read more about this topic: Antoine Perrenot De Granvelle
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