Gillis Schagen (1616,

Alkmaar Alkmaar () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the province of North Holland, about 30 km north of Amsterdam. Alkmaar is well known for its traditional cheese market. For tourists, it is a popular cultural destination. The ...

– 1668,

), was a Dutch Golden Age painter.

Biography

According to Houbraken, he was the son of Pieter Jansz Schagen, an important councilman of Alkmaar, who was taught to paint first by Salomon van Ravesteyn and then by the horse painter

Pieter Cornelisz Verbeeck Pieter Cornelisz Verbeeck (1610–1654) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Biography Verbeeck was born and died in Haarlem. According to Houbraken, he taught (horse) painting to Gillis Schagen, the son of an important councilman of Alkmaar.

. He traveled by boat to

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

where he was received by Joost Brasser, and then travelled to Elbing, where he was received by

Bartholomeus Strobel Bartholomeus Strobel the Younger or Bartholomäus in German or Bartlomiej in Polish (11 April 1591 (baptised) – after 1650) was a Baroque painter from Silesia, who worked in Prague, Silesia, and finally Poland, where he emigrated to escape th ...

.Gillis Schagen 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 painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of Dutch Golden Age painters. Life Houbraken was sent first to learn ''threadtwisting'' (Twyndraat) fr ...

, courtesy of the

Digital library for Dutch literature The Digital Library for Dutch Literature (Dutch: Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren or DBNL) is a website (showing the abbreviation as dbnl) about Dutch language and Dutch literature. It contains thousands of literary texts, second ...

Schagen painted a portrait of the King of Poland to "prove his mastership of the art" for him. From there he went home for a short stay before travelling by boat to Dieppe and onwards to Paris, where he painted portraits of many important people there and in Orleans. In October 1639 he set sail again, and crossed the English channel to England. He visited admiral

Maarten Tromp Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp (also written as ''Maerten Tromp''; 23 April 1598 – 31 July 1653) was a Dutch army general and admiral in the Dutch navy. Son of a ship's captain, Tromp spent much of his childhood at sea, including being captured ...

there, who invited him to draw his ships and observe the sea battle for inspiration. At that moment he was about to wage the

Battle of the Downs The Battle of the Downs took place on 21 October 1639 (New Style), during the Eighty Years' War. A Spanish fleet, commanded by Admiral Antonio de Oquendo, was decisively defeated by a Dutch force under Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp. Vict ...

against the Spanish under Antonio D'Oquendo. After observing the battle however, Schagen decided to return to the Netherlands without drawing the ships. He settled in Alkmaar where he became a member of the vroedschap like his father. After the

Peace of Westphalia The Peace of Westphalia (german: Westfälischer Friede, ) is the collective name for two peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. They ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and brought pea ...

in 1648 he made another trip to Brabant with Admiral van Dorp and van den Cornput van Dordrecht. In 1651 he made a trip to Liege and Cologne. He was a respected regent of the orphanage in Alkmaar when he died at 52. According to the RKD he painted portraits, history pieces, and genre works.Gillis Schagen
in the

RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

References

Gillis Schagen
on

Artnet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City, in the United States, and is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly traded company based in Berlin that is listed on t ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schagen, Gillis 1616 births 1668 deaths Dutch Golden Age painters Dutch male painters Painters from Alkmaar