Simon Denis - View on the Quirinal Hill, Rome

The Dutch School painters can be dated as Early Netherlandish (1400–1500), Dutch Renaissance (1500–1584), and, later, Dutch Golden Age painting in the United Provinces. The detailed realism of Early Netherlandish painting, led by Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the 1420s and 1430s, is today generally considered to be the beginning of the early Northern Renaissance in painting. This style was greatly respected in Italy, but there was little reciprocal influence on the North until nearly the end of the 15th century. Despite frequent cultural and artistic exchange, the Antwerp Mannerists (1500–1530) were unrelated to Italian Mannerism. Among notable northern painters were highly individualistic artists such as Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder who developed styles that were imitated by many subsequent generations. In the 16th century northern painters increasingly traveled to Italy, so the art of Michelangelo and Raphael and the late Renaissance Mannerism had a great impact on their work. Hieronymus Bosch and Geertgen tot Sint Jans are well-known examples of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Dutch painters. In the northern Netherlands, the Reformation brought religious painting almost completely to an end. Portrait painting was slow to spread from the elite to new riches. By the end of the 16th century, artists such as Karel van Mander and Hendrik Goltzius collected in Haarlem in a brief but intense phase of Northern Mannerism that also spread to Flanders. Between 1605 and 1635 over 100,000 paintings were produced in Haarlem. Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Jan Steen are just a few names form the seventeenth century.

Simon Denis was a Flemish painter who was born in 1755 in Antwerp, Belgium. He was a pupil of the famous painter Balthasar Beschey and later studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Denis was known for his landscape paintings, often inspired by the work of 17th century Dutch painters such as Jacob van Ruisdael and Aelbert Cuyp. He also painted portraits and historical scenes. In 1783, Denis moved to Paris, where he became a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. He was well respected in Parisian artistic circles and was appointed court painter to Louis XVI. Denis' style was characterised by a delicate use of light and colour, and his landscapes often had a sense of tranquillity and serenity. His work was highly influential on later generations of landscape painters. Simon Denis died in Paris in 1813 at the age of 58.