Daniel Seiter, Saiter, or Seyter (Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

,c.1642/1647 - Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

,1705) was a Viennese

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 born painter of the Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

, who trained and worked in Italy.

Biography

According to Houbraken, he was born on the border of Switzerland and brought up in Vienna. It is unknown who his first teacher was, but as a young man he crossed the alps to Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, where he apprenticed with Johann Carl Loth

Johann Carl Loth

Johann Carl Loth was a German Baroque painter, born in Munich but active most of his life in Venice.-Biography:He is also called Johann Karl, Karel, Carlotto, and Carlo Lotti. According to Houbraken he was one of three grand masters of art called "Karel" Johann Carl Loth (1632 – October 6, 1698)...

. He copied his style so well, that even at the time Houbraken was writing (1718), it was impossible to tell whether a painting was by him or Lott. He then moved to Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 to work in the studio of Carlo Maratta

Carlo Maratta

Carlo Maratta or Maratti was an Italian painter, active mostly in Rome, and known principally for his classicizing paintings executed in a Late Baroque Classical manner. Although he is part of the classical tradition stemming from Raphael, he was not exempt from the influence of Baroque painting...

, and while there, he joined the Bentvueghels

Bentvueghels

The Bentvueghels were a society of mostly Dutch and Flemish artists active in Rome from about 1620 to 1720. They are also known as the Schildersbent .-Activities:...

 and received the bent nickname of Morgenstar.

Becoming successful in Rome, he married a bookseller's daughter and won a lucrative commission from Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy

Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy

Charles Emmanuel II was the Duke of Savoy from 1638 to 1675 and under regency of his mother Christine Marie of France until 1663. He was also Marquis of Saluzzo, Count of Aosta, Geneva, Moriana and Nice, as well as claimant king of Cyprus and Jerusalem...

. The Duke's son Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia

Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia

Victor Amadeus II was Duke of Savoy from 1675 to 1730. He also held the titles of marquis of Saluzzo, duke of Montferrat, prince of Piedmont, count of Aosta, Moriana and Nizza. Louis XIV organised his marriage in order to maintain French influence in the Duchy but Victor Amadeus soon broke away...

 commissioned him in turn to decorate the Royal Palace of Turin

Royal Palace of Turin

Royal Palace of Turin or Palazzo Reale, is a palace in Turin, northern Italy. It was the royal palace of the House of Savoy. It was modernised greatly by the French born Madama Reale Christine Marie of France in the seventeenth century. The palace was worked on by Filippo Juvarra...

 in 1675, when he became duke after his father died. He liked Seiter's work so much that he knighted him. Today there is still a gallery there named after him. He also helped decorate in fresco the cupola of the chapel of the Ospedale Maggiore.

Seiter followed Victor Amadeus on his travels, and painted in Brunswick

Braunschweig

Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....

 and Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

.

Trivia

In his biography of Seiter, Houbraken tells a curious anecdote about the Duke and Seiter, saying that Seiter was given a walking cane with diamonds on the head of it, to use as a maulstick

Maulstick

A maulstick, or mahlstick, is a stick with a soft leather or padded head, used by painters to support the hand that holds the brush. The word is an adaptation of the Dutch maalstok, i.e...

 to rest his hand on while painting. This story was told to him by a painter named Le Blon. When Seiter was done painting he tried to give it back, but the Duke's guard told him to keep it as a token of regard. A similar expensive gift (it was solid gold) was given to Daniel Seghers

Daniel Seghers

Daniel Seghers was a Jesuit brother and Flemish Baroque painter who specialized in flower still lifes, and is particularly well-known for his contributions to the genre of "flower garland" painting. His paintings were collected enthusiastically by courtly patrons and he had numerous imitators...

 by Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange

Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange

Frederick Henry, or Frederik Hendrik in Dutch , was the sovereign Prince of Orange and stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel from 1625 to 1647.-Early life:...

 in exchange for a garland painting that hangs today in the Mauritshuis

Mauritshuis

The Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis is an art museum in The Hague, the Netherlands. Previously the residence of count John Maurice of Nassau, it now has a large art collection, including paintings by Dutch painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Steen, Paulus Potter and Frans...

 museum.

Though details of his career are sketchy, Seiter became a painter for the Dukes of Savoy much later than 1655, and thus was not a witness to his patron's murderous massacre of the Vaudois, that the poet John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

 memorialized in his On the Late Massacre in Piedmont

On the Late Massacre in Piedmont

On the Late Massacre in Piedmont is a sonnet by the English poet John Milton inspired by the massacre of Waldensians in Piedmont by the Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy in April 1655.-The sonnet:Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones...

.