Carel Fabritius, pupil of Rembrandt, killed in the 1654 explosion of gunpowder stores in Delft

Self-portrait of Carel Fabritius, founder of the Delft school of painting, killed on this day in 1654 in the monstrous explosion of the gunpowder magazine at Delft, where he had settled four years before his death. The artist lived to be only 32, yet managed to win renown as the most distinguished of Rembrandt's pupils. Sixteen paintings attributed to Fabritius survive, among them "The Goldfinch" in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, made famous by Donna Tartt. Russia has only one work by Fabritius, "Juno Hiding with Oceanus and Tethys", held in the collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts