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 ...
(
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, 1609 – Brussels, after 1685), was a
Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
painter of portraits and religious paintings.
Life
Little is known about the life and training of Jan Baptist van Heil. He was born in Brussels. His father Leo or Leon was a painter and two of his brothers were also artists: Leo was an architect and painter and
Daniel
Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means "God is my judge"Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 68. (cf. Gabriel—"God is my strength" ...
Prado Museum
The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...
The artist died in Brussels some time between 1685 and 1705.
Work
Only a few of Jan Baptist van Heil's works are known. He is mainly known for his work as a portrait painter. He was the designer of the portraits of the three van Heil brothers that appeared in
Het Gulden Cabinet
''Het Gulden Cabinet vande Edel Vry Schilder-Const'' 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 published in Antwerp. Writte ...
, the book with artist biographies by
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 ...
Museum of the City of Brussels
The Brussels City Museum (french: Musée de la ville de Bruxelles, nl, Museum van de Stad Brussel) is a municipal museum on the Grand-Place/Grote Markt of Brussels, Belgium. Conceived in 1860 and inaugurated in 1887, it is dedicated to the hi ...
). Jan Baptist is believed to have been responsible for the
staffage
In painting, staffage () are the human and animal figures depicted in a scene, especially a landscape, that are not the primary subject matter of the work. Typically they are small, and there to add an indication of scale and add interest.
Before ...
while his brother Daniel painted the landscape and the palace. The canvas shows a landscape with the palace of the governors of the Southern Netherlands near Brussels. In the foreground the Archduchess Isabella, widow of Archduke Albrecht and reigning governess, walks in the gardens of the palace in the habit of the
Poor Clares
The Poor Clares, officially the Order of Saint Clare ( la, Ordo sanctae Clarae) – originally referred to as the Order of Poor Ladies, and later the Clarisses, the Minoresses, the Franciscan Clarist Order, and the Second Order of Saint Francis ...
, a religious order the Archduchess had joined after the death of her husband.
Jan Baptist van Heil was invited to provide designs for the first French Theatre established in Brussels in the 1670s.Frederic Faber, ''Histoire Du Theatre Francais En Belgique, Depuis Son Origine Jusqu'a Nos Jours'', (Ed. 1878–1880), Slatkin reprints 1977, p. 93
