Willem van Haecht
Encyclopedia
Tobias Verhaecht
Tobias Verhaecht was a painter and draughtsman active in Antwerp, Florence and Rome. Primarily a landscape painter, his style is indebted to mannerist world landscapes of artists like Joachim Patinir with high viewpoints, fantastic distant perspectives and three-colour scheme. Before Verhaecht...
. He studied under Peter Paul Rubens, worked in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
from 1615 to 1619, and then travelled to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
for about seven years. Van Haecht became a master in Antwerp's guild of St. Luke in 1626 and from 1628 onwards was the curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
of the art collection owned by Cornelis van der Geest
Cornelis van der Geest
Cornelis van der Geest was a spice merchant from Antwerp, who used his wealth to support the Antwerp artists and to establish his art collection. He was also the dean of the haberdashers guild...
. This collection is represented in allegorical terms in the Picture Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest
Cornelis van der Geest
Cornelis van der Geest was a spice merchant from Antwerp, who used his wealth to support the Antwerp artists and to establish his art collection. He was also the dean of the haberdashers guild...
(1628; Rubenshuis, Antwerp). The left side of the painting includes various portraits of contemporaneous figures, including (from the left) Infanta Isabel Clara of Spain
Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain
Isabella Clara Eugenia of Austria was sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands in the Low Countries and the north of modern France, together with her husband Albert. In some sources, she is referred to as Clara Isabella Eugenia...
, Archduke Albert of Austria
Albert VII, Archduke of Austria
Archduke Albert VII of Austria was, jointly with his wife, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands between 1598 and 1621, ruling the Habsburg territories in the southern Low Countries and the north of modern France...
, Peter Paul Rubens, Prince Władysław Vasa of Poland
Władysław IV Vasa
Władysław IV Vasa was a Polish and Swedish prince from the House of Vasa. He reigned as King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from 8 November 1632 to his death in 1648....
(who visited van der Geest's Gallery in 1624, with black hat) and the host showing a picture, as well as many famous paintings like Paracelsus
Paracelsus
Paracelsus was a German-Swiss Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist....
by Quentin Matsys
Quentin Matsys
Quentin Matsys was a painter in the Flemish tradition and a founder of the Antwerp school. He was born at Leuven, where legend states he was trained as an ironsmith before becoming a painter...
.
Sources
- Christine van Mulders. "Haecht, Willem van, II," Grove Art Online. Oxford University PressOxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, [7 November 2007]. - Vlieghe, Hans (1998). Flemish Art and Architecture, 1585-1700. Pelican history of art. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07038-1