Jan van Kessel (1641,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

– 1680,

) was a

Dutch Golden Age The Dutch Golden Age ( ) was a period in the history of the Netherlands which roughly lasted from 1588, when the Dutch Republic was established, to 1672, when the '' Rampjaar'' occurred. During this period, Dutch trade, scientific development ...

draftsman and landscape painter who made many cityscapes of

. His work is often confused with the works of contemporary painters with the same name.

Biography

According to Houbraken he was born in Amsterdam in 1648 and made clever farm scenes that he first drew from life before making his oil paintings.Jan van Kessel Biography
in ''De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen'' (1718) by

Arnold Houbraken Arnold Houbraken (28 March 1660 – 14 October 1719) was a Dutch people, Dutch Painting, painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of Dutch Golden Age painters. Life Houbraken was sent first to learn ''threadt ...

, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature Houbraken went on to mention that he was best known for his winter scenes and died in 1698. Houbraken couldn't discover whether he was related to the Jan van Kessel of Antwerp, who was mentioned in

Cornelis de Bie Cornelis de Bie (10 February 1627 – ) was a Flemish '' rederijker'', poet, jurist and minor politician from Lier. He is the author of about 64 works, mostly comedies. He is known internationally today for his biographical sketches of Flemish ...

's book

Het Gulden Cabinet or ''The Golden Cabinet of the Noble Liberal Art of Painting'' is a book by the 17th-century Flemish notary and ''Chamber of rhetoric, rederijker'' Cornelis de Bie. It was published in Antwerp. Written in the Dutch language, it contains artist ...

. According to the RKD he was the son of the framemaker Thomas Jacobsz van Kessel, and the pupil of the landscape painter

Jacob van Ruisdael Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (; 1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural achie ...

in Amsterdam.Jan van Kessel (1641-1680)
in the

RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...

He is known for cityscapes, beach scenes, winter landscapes and architectural works. Many of his works are similar to those of van Ruisdael and have been taken as his, sometimes after faked signatures were added. Slive, Seymour, ''Dutch Painting, 1600–1800'', p. 205, Yale UP, 1995,

References

Jan Kessel
on

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kessel (Amsterdam), Jan van 1641 births 1680 deaths Dutch Golden Age painters Dutch male painters Painters from Amsterdam