Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Arts & Music

36

🕯️ 980

George Frideric Handel (Georg Friedrich Händel)

Georg Friedrich Händel

Germany

23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759 (74 years old)

German-British Baroque titan whose grand orchestral suites (Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks) and dramatic English oratorios—above all Messiah with its immortal Hallelujah Chorus—electrified European musical life.

London, Great Britain

36 Full Record →

Arts & Music

1,756

🕯️ 115

Domenico Scarlatti

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti

Italy

1685 – 1757 (71 years old)

Italian composer whose 555 brilliant keyboard sonatas pushed harpsichord virtuosity and harmonic audacity to unprecedented heights.

Madrid, Spain

1,756 Full Record →

Arts & Music

36

🕯️ 0

Tomaso Albinoni

Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni

Italy

1671 – 1751 (79 years old)

Venetian Baroque composer celebrated for his lyrical oboe concertos, elegant trio sonatas, and Italian operas, whose melodic genius was deeply admired and studied by J.S. Bach.

Venice, Republic of Venice

36 Full Record →

Arts & Music

35

🕯️ 0

Rachel Ruysch

Rachel Ruysch

Netherlands

1664 – 1750 (86 years old)

Pre-eminent Dutch Golden Age flower painter whose exquisite scientific botanical accuracy, dramatic lighting, and vibrant floral bouquets earned international royal commissions across a 60-year career.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

35 Full Record →

Arts & Music

42

🕯️ 999

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Germany

31 March 1685 – 28 July 1750 (65 years old)

Supreme master of Western music whose towering achievements in counterpoint, sacred cantatas, the Mass in B minor, the St Matthew Passion, and The Well-Tempered Clavier stand as the absolute summit of the Baroque era.

Leipzig (Saxony), Germany

42 Full Record →

Arts & Music

37

🕯️ 975

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi

Italy

4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741 (63 years old)

Venetian Baroque composer and violin virtuoso whose brilliant three-movement concerto form, sparkling orchestral rhythms, and vivid program music in The Four Seasons defined high Baroque instrumental music.

Vienna, Austria

37 Full Record →

Arts & Music

34

🕯️ 0

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Giovanni Battista Draghi

Italy

1710 – 1736 (26 years old)

Italian early Classical composer who revolutionized comic opera with 'La serva padrona' and composed the immortal 'Stabat Mater' before dying of tuberculosis at age twenty-six.

Pozzuoli, Kingdom of Naples

34 Full Record →

Arts & Music

36

🕯️ 0

François Couperin

François Couperin

France

1668 – 1733 (64 years old)

French Baroque composer and organist known as 'Couperin le Grand', the supreme master of the French harpsichord school and creator of the haunting 'Leçons de ténèbres'.

Paris, France

36 Full Record →

Arts & Music

35

🕯️ 0

Sir Christopher Wren

Christopher Wren

Great Britain

1632 – 1723 (90 years old)

Savilian Professor of Astronomy, founder of the Royal Society, and England's greatest architect who rebuilt fifty-two churches after the Great Fire of London, crowned by Saint Paul's Cathedral.

London, United Kingdom

35 Full Record →

Arts & Music

34

🕯️ 0

Jean-Antoine Watteau

Antoine Watteau

France

1684 – 1721 (36 years old)

Pioneering French Rococo painter who invented the 'fête galante' genre, capturing fleeting romantic intimacy, music, and melancholy in 'The Embarkation for Cythera'.

Nogent-sur-Marne, France

34 Full Record →

Arts & Music

34

🕯️ 0

Maria Sibylla Merian

Maria Sibylla Merian

Germany

1647 – 1717 (69 years old)

German-Dutch scientific illustrator, botanist, and entomologist whose expedition to Suriname and masterpiece 'Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium' revolutionized art and science.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

34 Full Record →

Arts & Music

34

🕯️ 0

Ogata Korin

尾形 光琳

Japan

c. 1658 – 1716 (58 years old)

Major Japanese painter and lacquer artist of the Edo period who revived and formalized the Rinpa school, world-renowned for his gold-leaf screens Irises and Red and White Plum Blossoms.

Kyoto, Japan

34 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3,207

🕯️ 89

Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli

Italy

1653 – 1713 (59 years old)

Italian Baroque composer and violin virtuoso who developed the modern concerto grosso and classical violin technique.

Rome, Italy

3,207 Full Record →

Arts & Music

34

🕯️ 0

Marc-Antoine Charpentier

Marc-Antoine Charpentier

France

c. 1643 – 1704 (61 years old)

French Baroque master celebrated for his profound sacred choral polyphony, his collaboration with Molière on 'The Imaginary Invalid', and the iconic Eurovision anthem 'Te Deum'.

Paris, France

34 Full Record →

Arts & Music

1,156

🕯️ 103

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell

Great Britain

1 – 1695 (36 years old)

Greatest English Baroque composer whose sublime theatrical music, anthems, and opera Dido and Aeneas defined British music.

London, United Kingdom

1,156 Full Record →

Arts & Music

36

🕯️ 0

Willem Kalf

Willem Kalf

Netherlands

1619 – 1693 (73 years old)

Foremost Dutch painter of pronkstilleven (sumptuous still lifes) whose dramatic chiaroscuro rendered peeled lemons, Ming porcelain, and Venetian glass with astonishing optical brilliance.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

36 Full Record →

Arts & Music

30

🕯️ 0

Aelbert Jacobszoon Cuyp

Aelbert Cuyp

Netherlands

1620 – 1691 (71 years old)

Dutch Golden Age landscape master renowned for his golden Mediterranean evening light bathing pastoral scenes of cattle, horsemen, and rivers around Dordrecht.

Dordrecht, Netherlands

30 Full Record →

Arts & Music

35

🕯️ 0

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Giovanni Battista Lulli

Italy

1632 – 1687 (54 years old)

Florentine-born French Baroque master who dominated music at the court of the Sun King Louis XIV, founded French opera (tragédie lyrique), and established orchestral discipline.

Paris, France

35 Full Record →