Hendrik van Minderhout

Hendrik van Minderhout (1632 – 22 July 1696) was a Dutch-born marine painter who was primarily active in the Flemish cities Bruges and Antwerp.[1] He also collaborated as a staffage painter with Flemish landscape and perspective painters.[2]

The Battle of Lowestoft, c. 1665

Life
Fish market in Antwerp

Minderhout was born in Rotterdam. For unknown reasons, he was known as the 'Green Knight of Rotterdam'.[3] He arrived in Bruges in 1652. He may have spent time in Italy in 1653. In 1663, he joined Bruges' Guild of Saint Luke. Subsequently, from 1672 until his death in 1696, van Minderhout lived in Antwerp where he became a member of the local Guild of Saint Luke.[1] He gifted a large canvas of an oriental port to Antwerp's guild to be exempted from any guild duties. In 1673, he married his second wife, Anna-Victoria Claus. The couple had five children, of whom two, Antoon van Minderhout (26 Sept 1675 – 22 Dec 1705) and Willem August van Minderhout (28 Aug 1680 – 31 June 1752), became painters.[3]

He was the master of Lucas Smout the Younger.[1]

He died in Antwerp.

Work
View of the Harbour of Bruges

Hendrik van Minderhout mainly painted large views of seas and harbours and marine battles. His subjects included realist views such as of the ports of Antwerp and Bruges, as well as imaginary views of Mediterranean and oriental ports. It has been suggested that the wide variety of works bearing the signature Hendrik van Minderhout points to the existence of two artists of the same name who were active at the same time.[3]

His later marine works are comparable to that of the Dutch seascape painter Willem van de Velde the Younger.[4]

Van Minderhout was appreciated as a staffage painter by his Antwerp colleagues and it is known that he contributed the figures to works by local landscape and perspective painters including Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg and Jacob Balthasar Peeters.[2][5]

gollark: Amazing, I never would have guessed.
gollark: Well, off you go, make them.
gollark: Hmm, I have a raspberry pi and touchscreen, I ought to get some batteries and do this.
gollark: I mean proper linux, not running Java apps, and with decent access to internals.
gollark: Yes, I know.

References
  1. Hendrik van Minderhout at the Netherlands Institute for Art History (in Dutch)
  2. Frans Jozef Peter Van den Branden, Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche schilderschool, Antwerpen, 1883, p. 876 (in Dutch)
  3. Trudy van Zadelhoff. "Minderhout, Hendrik van." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 10 Jan. 2015
  4. Hans Vlieghe (1998). Flemish Art and Architecture, 1585-1700. Pelican History of Art. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07038-1
  5. Jacob Peeters and Hendrik van Minderhout, Gemäldepaar Fantastische höfische Architektur mit Figurenstaffage at Hampel Auctions (in German)

Media related to Hendrik van Minderhout at Wikimedia Commons

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