Biography

German painter. The son of a bookkeeper at the corn exchange, he was known because of a disability as 'the Ovelgönne mute'. An aristocratic sponsor, probably Graf Anton Günther (1603-1667) of Oldenburg, sent him to train in the Netherlands: stylistic considerations would suggest that this was in the 1630s. The Evening Scene (1637, private collection) shows him adapting the style of Caravaggio as practiced in Utrecht to the kind of social gathering depicted by Dirck Hals or Anthonie Palamedesz. He uses an artificial light source to exaggerate the modelling of the figures and the space. This characteristic of his art also shows in the Evening Banquet of 1640 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), which might represent a stop on a southward journey to Italy: works from this time suggest contact with southern Germany and Austria.

It is only after his arrival in Italy, working under the influence of Gerrit van Honthorst, that Heimbach's painting achieves a dramatic impact. His 1645 portrait of Innocent X (Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen) indicates his presence in Rome that year, and a letter of 1646 mentions Ferdinando II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, as his patron.

From 1653 to c. 1663, he served as court painter to King Frederick III of Denmark-Norway. From 1670 until his death he was in the service of the Prince Bishop of Münster, Christoph Bernhard von Galen.