17^th Century Flemish

Painter of landscapes and hunting scenes, belonging to the School of Antwerp. Art dealer.

The son of the innkeeper Robert Musson and of Elisabeth Willenhout, he was born in 1598 in Antwerp, where he was christened on 28^th October. He may have had his first training with a local painter. In 1620 he entered Rubens’ workshop and joined the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp in 1622, probably the year when he set up his own workshop. On 24^th February 1632 he married Maria Borremans, the daughter of a glass merchant, who died childless on 12^th May 1646. Musson remarried the following year, on 15^th September 1647, this time with Maria Fourmenois.

Although his trading activity is extensively documented, there are very few records of his work as a painter. There is an account of the sale of two of his paintings in 1654 for a significant amount, leading us to infer that he must have been a highly valued artist.

He started dealing with tableware (earthenware, porcelain, crystal, cutlery) and tiles, although he always showed an interest in the art market. By 1647, the same year as his second marriage and his appointment as dean of the Guild of Saint Luke, there were already records of his work as a trader in artworks, as confirmed by his contacts with art dealers and collectors from the Netherlands and beyond. The fact that even other artists bought works from Musson confirms his prominent position in the mid 1600s in the art scene in Antwerp. In the second half of the century he would become one of the most important dealers, both in terms of the volume of his transactions and his reputation.

His incorporation to the art market was reinforced after his marriage with Maria Fourmenois (widow of the Flemish painter and art dealer Cornelis Wael, a collaborator of Van Dyck in his Italian period and one of the persons behind the exchange of paintings between Flanders, Italy and Spain), who would be of great help in Musson’s trading activity. In Dutch society at the time, women contributed to the stability and financial running of the home, and they enjoyed legal rights (they could mortgage goods, hold properties and set up businesses) that were unthinkable in other European countries, where such freedom would not be achieved until well into the 20^th century.

It is a known fact that at least 60 painters, mostly from the Mechelen area, would have worked for Musson and Fourmenois. Many of them remain unidentified, but they include Joos de Momper the Younger, David Teniers the Younger, Frans Snyders, Pieter van Lint, Willem van Herp and Jan Verhuyck. His training as a painter enabled him to advise his artists about their works like, for instance, in 1675 when he asked Pieter van Lint to retouch a foreground figure in a work on The Apostles for whose adaptation he paid him 10 guilder.