Biography

Steenwyck, Hendrick van the Elder (d. 1603) and Hendrick van the Younger, Flemish painters, father and son, specialists in architectural views. Little is known of the career of either man, but the father, who was probably a pupil of Vredeman de Vries, is credited with developing the church interior as a special branch of painting.

Hendrick the Younger received training from his father in Antwerp, then moved to Germany. He was in England between about 1617 and 1637 where he worked for Charles I. The last years of his life were probably spent in Holland.

Both father and son painted small pictures of real and imaginary churches, sometimes as eerie nocturnal scenes. There are several examples of the work of Hendrick the Younger in the National Gallery, London; in two of them the figures are credited to Jan Brueghel the Elder.