Biography

Dutch painter, son of a Delft goldsmith. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the first twenty-nine years of his life, not even the name of his teacher. It has been assumed but cannot be said with certainty that he resided during 1648 in the coastal town of Scheveningen, outside The Hague. The first document to shed light on his life is his registration with the Guild of St Luke in Delft in October 17, 1650; he is listed as a landscape painter. A year later he married Aeltgen Willems van Linschooten in Maasluis, near Rotterdam. The couple were living on the Doelenstraat in Delft at the time of the gunpowder explosion on October 12, 1654, as one of their daughters was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk there on October 14. Whether she was a victim of the explosion is not known. The couple had three daughters who were baptized in Delft. The baptismal records of a son indicate that the artist was living on the Rotte next to the St Joris House in Rotterdam by November 1655. He died in Rotterdam nine years later.