Willem van Haecht - The Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest, 1628 - Self portrait

Willem van Haecht (1593 – 12 July 1637) was a Flemish painter best known for his pictures of art galleries and collections.

Life

Willem van Haecht was born in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

as the son of the landscape painter Tobias Verhaecht. Tobias Verhaecht was a prominent painter who had been the first teacher of Peter Paul Rubens. Willem was a pupil of his father. He worked in Paris from 1615 to 1619, and then travelled to Italy for about seven years. Van Haecht became a master in Antwerp's

guild of St. Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Four Evangelists, Evangelist Saint Luke, Luke, the patron sa ...

in 1626 and from 1628 onwards was the curator of the art collection owned by Cornelis van der Geest. This collection is represented in allegorical terms in the ''Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest'' (1628; Rubenshuis, Antwerp). The left side of the painting includes various portraits of contemporaneous figures, including (from the left) Infanta Isabel Clara of Spain, Archduke Albert of Austria, Peter Paul Rubens, Prince Władysław Vasa of Poland (who visited van der Geest's Gallery in 1624, with black hat) and the host showing a picture, as well as many famous paintings such as ''

Paracelsus Paracelsus (; ; 1493 – 24 September 1541), born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance. He w ...

'' by Quentin Matsys. ''Alexander the Great Visiting the Studio of Apelles'' (ca. 1630, Mauritshuis) is another gallery painting by van Haecht. It has significant documentary evidence as it is believed it is an idealised image of elements drawn from Rubens' collection.Jeffrey M. Muller, ''Rubens: The Artist as Collector'' (Princeton UP, 1989), 41.

Gallery

File:Willem van Haecht - Interior of the Salon of the Archduchess Isabella of Austria, 1621.jpg, ''Interior of the Salon of the Archduchess Isabella of Austria''; 1621, oil on panel, 93 × 123 cm, Norton Museum of Art. File:Willem van Haecht - The Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest, 1628.jpg, ''The Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest''; 1628, oil on panel, 99 × 129 cm,

Rubenshuis The Rubenshuis () is the former home and workshop of Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) in Antwerp. Purchased in 1610, Rubens had the Flemish townhouse renovated and extended on the basis of designs by Rubens himself. After the renovations, the ho ...

. File:Willem van Haecht - Alexander the Great visits the studio of Apelles N08610-169-lr-1.jpg, ''Alexander the Great visits the studio of Apelles''; 1628–37, oil on panel, 78 × 114 cm, private collection. File:Willem van Haecht (II) - Apelles painting Campaspe - 2.jpg, ''Apelles painting Campaspe''; , oil on panel, 105 × 149 cm,

Mauritshuis The Mauritshuis (; en, Maurice House) is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 854 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. The collection contains works by Johannes Vermeer ...

. File:Willem van Haecht - Collection of Cornelis de Geest wirh Paracelsus.jpg, ''Collection of Cornelis de Geest with Paracelsus''; 1630s, oil on panel, 73 × 104 cm, The Bute collection.

References

Sources

*Christine van Mulders. "Haecht, Willem van, II," ''Grove Art Online''. Oxford University Press, November 2007 *Vlieghe, Hans (1998).
Flemish Art and Architecture, 1585–1700
'. Pelican history of art. New Haven: Yale University Press. *Alexander Marr, "Ingenuity and Discernment in ''The Cabinet of Cornelis van der Geest'' (1628)", ''Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek'', vol. 69 (2020), 106–145

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Haecht, Willem van Flemish Baroque painters 1593 births 1637 deaths Painters from Antwerp