NOLLEKENS, English family of artists of Flemish origin

Jan Baptiste Nollekens (1665-after 1720) was a Flemish painter of genre subjects. He worked in Antwerp, was in Middelburg in 1718, later visited England and finally settled at Roanne in France. His sons, Jan Nollekens (1695-1783) and Joseph Francis Nollekens (1702-1748), were both painters, the second of whom settled in England in 1733, where he specialized in conversation pieces and genre scenes. Joseph Francis Nollekens's son Joseph Nollekens (1737-1823) trained in London and Rome as a sculptor; his portrait busts are among the finest made in England in the late 18th century and early 19th.