LASTMAN, PIETER

born 1583, Amsterdam died 1633, Amsterdam Dutch painter of biblical and mythological scenes in antique landscapes who had a strong influence on the young Rembrandt, who worked in his Amsterdam studio in 1624. Lastman received his earliest training from a pupil of Cornelis van Haarlem, a painter of the post-Renaissance Mannerist school. He also shared stylistic affinities with Hendrik Goltzius, another prominent painter in Haarlem. He worked in Rome about 160307, where he was profoundly influenced by an important German landscape painter, Adam Elsheimer. By the time he returned to Amsterdam in 1607, he had assimilated Elsheimer's sensitive feeling for light and atmosphere in landscape. Rembrandt's Angel and the Prophet Balaam (1626; Muse Cognacq-Jay, Paris) is based on Lastman's earlier painting of the same subject (1622; Palmer Collection, England). Lastman's Coriolanus and the Roman Woman (Trinity College, Dublin) and The Baptism of the Chamberlain (Alte Pinakothek, Munich) also influenced the early narrative style of Rembrandt.