Jacob Vrel ( fl. (c.1630–c.1680) was a Dutch, Flemish, or Westphalian painter of interiors and urban street scenes during the

Dutch Golden Age The Dutch Golden Age ( nl, Gouden Eeuw ) was a period in the history of the Netherlands, roughly spanning the era from 1588 (the birth of the Dutch Republic) to 1672 (the Rampjaar, "Disaster Year"), in which Dutch trade, science, and Dutch art, ...

(1588–1672). He was active from 1654 to 1662.

Biography

Jacob Vrel is also referred to as ''Jan'' instead of Jacob(us); alternative spellings of his surname are ''Frel'', ''Frelle'', ''Vreele'', ''Vrelle'', and ''Vriel''.Jacob Vrel
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 ...

Though Vrel's birthplace is unknown, scholars consider him a Dutch artist. Despite the many architectural elements, bread products or clothing of the figures in his paintings, art historians are unable to assign most of Vrel's street scenes to any particular city or region. Vrel is thought to have composed them mostly from imagination. As of 2021, two experts have recognized streets and buildings of the Dutch city of

Zwolle Zwolle () is a city and municipality in the Northeastern Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Overijssel and the province's second-largest municipality after Enschede with a population of 130,592 as of 1 December 2021. Zwolle is o ...

, not far from the German border in three pictures.

Style

According to the

Netherlands Institute for Art History 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 ...

(Dutch '' RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis''), Vrel was a member of the same "school" or artistic style as

Pieter de Hooch Pieter de Hooch (, also spelled "Hoogh" or "Hooghe"; 20 December 1629 (baptized) – 24 March 1684 (buried)) was a Dutch Golden Age painter famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was a contemporary of ...

, showing simple intimate scenes of daily life in towns, often including studies in perspective. Though no evidence for a specific "school" exists, the center of influence seems to have been in the artistic centers of Haarlem and Delft, for artists born during the years 1620–1630. The painters listed by the RKD in this category are

Esaias Boursse Esaias Boursse (March 3, 1631 – November 16, 1672) was a Dutch painter. His paintings were mainly genre works. Biography He was born in Amsterdam, the youngest son of immigrants from Wallonia. His parents, Jacques Boursse and Anna des Forest ...

Hendrick van der Burgh Hendrick van der Burgh (1627 – after 1664), was a Dutch Golden Age genre painter. Biography According to the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) he was born in Delft and was a member of the same "school" or artistic style as Piet ...

, Pieter de Hooch,

Pieter Janssens Elinga Pieter Janssens Elinga (1623–1682) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, mainly of domestic interior scenes with a strong emphasis on the rectangular geometrical elements of windows, floor tiling paintings, and other elements, and a few genre figure ...

Cornelis de Man Cornelis de Man (1 July 1621, in Delft – 1 September 1706, in Delft) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Biography As a young man, Kornelis was not satisfied with life in Delft. He wanted to travel beyond the port of Dordrecht and that is what h ...

Hendrick ten Oever Hendrick ten Oever (1639 – 1716), was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Biography He was born in Zwolle as the son of David ten Oever and Marijke Molkenbuer.

Work

Thirty-eight to forty paintings have been attributed to Vrel. Young Woman in an Interior A20894

The following public collections hold Vrel´s work in their permanent collections: *

Alte Pinakothek The Alte Pinakothek (, ''Old Pinakothek'') is an art museum located in the Kunstareal area in Munich, Germany. It is one of the oldest galleries in the world and houses a significant collection of Old Master paintings. The name Alte (Old) Pinak ...

, Munich: ''Street Scene with Figures in Conversation'' *

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...

, Oxford: ''The Little Nurse'' *

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the list of largest art museums, largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation a ...

, Detroit: ''Interior'' *

Groninger Museum The Groninger Museum () is an art museum in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. The museum exhibits modern and contemporary art of local, national, and international artists. The museum opened in 1874. The current post-modernist building co ...

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

: ''Interior with a Man by a Fireplace'' * Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg: ''Street Scene'' *Heylshof Museum, Worms: ''Two Cottage Women Conversing'' * Kunstthalle Hamburg: ''Street Corner'' *

Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal do ...

, Vienna: ''Woman at a Window'' *

Museum de Fundatie Museum de Fundatie () is a museum for the visual arts in Zwolle, Netherlands. Museum de Fundatie forms part of the Hannema-de Stuers Foundation, to which Kasteel het Nijenhuis in Heino also belongs. Museum de Fundatie possesses a collection of vis ...

: ''Interior with a Busy Woman'', 1650. *

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, Washington:
Young Woman in an Interior
', ca. 1660. * Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille: ''The Weaver's Workshop'' *

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, Philadelphia:
Street Scene
', mid-17th century *

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the St ...

, Amsterdam:
Alleyway in a Dutch Town
';
Woman in Front of a Stove
' * Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp: ''The Little Sick Nurse'' * Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels: ''Interior with a Woman and a Child'' *

San Diego Museum of Art The San Diego Museum of Art is a fine arts museum located at 1450 El Prado in Balboa Park in San Diego, California that houses a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. The San Diego Museum of Art opened as The Fine Arts Galler ...

, San Diego: ''The Little Sick Nurse'' *

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (in Spanish, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (), named after its founder), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. I ...

, Madrid:
Interior with Woman Seated by a Hearth
' *

Wallraf–Richartz Museum The Wallraf–Richartz Museum (full name in German: ') is one of the three major museums in Cologne, Germany. It houses an art gallery with a collection of fine art from the medieval period to the early twentieth century. History The museum ...

, Cologne: ''Interior with an Old Woman'' A retrospective exhibition curated by Berndt Ebert of the

was to open in late 2020, followed by the

catalogue raisonné A ''catalogue raisonné'' (or critical catalogue) is a comprehensive, annotated listing of all the known artworks by an artist either in a particular medium or all media. The works are described in such a way that they may be reliably identified ...

by Ebert, Cécile Tainturier and Quentin Buvelot.in 2021. The monographic exhibition on Vrel was rescheduled to be shown in 2023 at the

Fondation Custodia The Fondation Custodia is an art collection in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, focusing on European Old Master works, including works by Dutch, Flemish, Italian and French artists. It was founded in 1947 by the collector and art historian Frits ...

in Paris and the

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 ...

in The Hague.

References

Bibliography

Théophile Thoré Theophilus is a male given name with a range of alternative spellings. Its origin is the Greek word Θεόφιλος from θεός (God) and φιλία (love or affection) can be translated as "Love of God" or "Friend of God", i.e., it is a theoph ...

. "Van der Meer de Delft." ''Gazette des beaux-arts'' uppl. is ''Chron. A''.21 (1866): 458–470. * Clotilde Brière-Misme. "Un 'Intimiste' hollandais: Jacob Vrel." ''Revue de l’art ancien et moderne'' 68 (1935): 97–114, 157–172. * Gérard Regnier. "Jacob Vrel, un Vermeer du pauvre." ''Gazette des beaux-arts'' uppl. is ''Chron. A.''n.s. 6, 71 (1968): 269–282. * Peter Sutton, ed. ''Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting'' (exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art; Gemäldegalerie, Berlin; Royal Academy, London, 1984): 352–354. * Elizabeth Honig: "Looking in(to) Jacob Vrel." ''Yale Journal of Criticism'' 3, no. 1 (Fall, 1989): 37–56.

External links

*
Jacob Vrel
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:Vrel, Jacob Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Dutch Golden Age painters Dutch male painters Dutch genre painters Artists from Haarlem Artists from Delft Year of birth uncertain