Willem Drost (baptized 19 April 1633 – buried 25 February 1659) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and printmaker of history paintings and portraits.

Biography

He is a mysterious figure, closely associated with Rembrandt, with very few paintings clearly attributable to him.Slive, 116 He was presumably born in

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, in what was then known as the United Provinces of the Netherlands, but when and where is unknown. Around 1650, according to the early art historian Houbraken, he became a student of Rembrandt, eventually developing a close working relationship, painting history scenes, biblical compositions, symbolic studies of a solitary figure, as well as portraits. As a student, his 1654 painting titled ''Bathsheba'' was inspired by Rembrandt's painting done in the same year on the same subject and given the same title, though their treatments are rather different; both Drost's and Rembrandt's paintings are in the Louvre in

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. Houbraken described him as a painter of historical allegories and a pupil of Rembrandt.