Biography

Waterloo is thought to have been born at Ryssel near Lille (located in what is now part of northern France). His mother was Magdalena Vaillant who became a member of the Walloon church in Amsterdam in 1621, followed by his own membership in 1630. Little is known of his early life and, as
no records of any formal training as an artist have been discovered, he may well have been self-taught. Although registered as a painter, he had little success in selling his own canvases and, apparently, supported himself through his activities as an art dealer in addition to sales of his drawings and prints.

In 1640 he married in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, and in 1653 he left the church and moved to Leeuwarden, but in 1654 he buried a daughter in Amsterdam before moving to Maarssen

Maarssen

Maarssen is a town and former municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht, along the river Vecht. It lies in an area called the Vechtstreek.On January 1, 2011 Maarssen merged with Breukelen and Loenen to Stichtse Vecht....

 in 1655 where he lived until 1676. According to Houbraken he was good friends with Jan Weenix

Jan Weenix

Jan Weenix or Joannis Wenix was a Dutch painter. He was trained by his father, Jan Baptist Weenix, together with his cousin Melchior d'Hondecoeter. Like his father, he devoted himself to a variety of subjects, but his fame is chiefly due to his paintings of dead game and of hunting scenes...

 who told Houbraken that he knew him for 45 years and often visited him in his house between Maarssen

Maarssen

Maarssen is a town and former municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht, along the river Vecht. It lies in an area called the Vechtstreek.On January 1, 2011 Maarssen merged with Breukelen and Loenen to Stichtse Vecht....

 and Breukelen

Breukelen

Breukelen is a town and former municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht. It is situated to the north west of Utrecht, along the river Vecht and close to the lakes of the Loosdrechtse Plassen, an area of natural and touristic interest...

 where he lived as a bachelor, to decorate his landscape paintings with animals and other objects. Houbraken found his landscapes very natural, and liked his manner of painting reflections in water.

Waterloo was among the first artists to have estabished a reputation almost entirely based upon his work as a draftsman. Oil paintings by Waterloo are relatively scarce, but his many drawings of forest scenes and other topographical views are found in collections in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Vienna, Amsterdam, and London. The 1931 catalogue of drawings, for instance lists 29 examples of Waterloo drawings. A landscape artist, Waterloo also produced many etchings which increased his popularity and extended his influence into the next century and beyond to the French Barbizon

Barbizon

Barbizon is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. It is located near the Fontainebleau Forest.-Art history:The Barbizon school of painters is named after the village; Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet, leaders of the school, made their homes and died in the...

 painters of the mid-19th century. While many of many of Waterloo's larger etchings and drawings (some almost the size of his paintings) are careful in their depiction of the smallest, individual detail, his smaller drawings of mountain valley views often feature an impressionistic group of forms as atmospheric perspective leads the eye into the hilly distance along a characteristically Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 zig-zag course. Such drawings may have been known to the English landscape etcher John Robert Cozens

John Robert Cozens

John Robert Cozens was a British draftsman and painter of romantic watercolour landscapes.-Biography:The son of the Russian-born drawing master and watercolorist, Alexander Cozens, John Robert Cozens was born in London. He studied under his father and began to exhibit some early drawings with the...

 and, in turn, may have had a stylistic impact upon the young J.M.W. Turner.

His art dealership exposed him to the work of a number of respected contemporary landscape artists such as Jacob van Ruisdael, Simon de Vlieger

Simon de Vlieger

Simon de Vlieger was a Dutch designer, draughtsman, and painter, most famous for his marine paintings.-Life:...

, Roelant Roghman

Roelant Roghman

Roelant Roghman was a Dutch Golden Age painter and engraver.-Biography:Roghman was born in Amsterdam, the son of the engraver Henrick Lambertsz Roghman and Maria Jacobs Savery. His mother was a daughter of the Savery family, and Roghman became a student of his namesake and great-uncle, Roelant...

, and Caesar van Everdingen

Caesar van Everdingen

Cesar Pietersz, or Cesar Boetius van Everdingen , older brother of Allart van Everdingen and Jan van Everdingen, was a Dutch Golden Age portrait and history painter.-Biography:...

, from whom he absorbed a variety of influences. Judging from the locales depicted in his drawings, he traveled widely and his trips to Germany, Switzerland, France, Poland. and even Italy have since been theorized. In Germany, he made a trip along the Rhine river, and visited various towns such as Kleef, Bentheim

Bentheim

County of Bentheim is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the Dutch provinces of Overijssel and Drenthe, the district of Emsland, and the districts of Steinfurt and Borken in North Rhine-Westphalia.- History :The District has roughly the same territory as the County of...

, Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Altona, Hamburg

Altona, Hamburg

Altona is the westernmost urban borough of the German city state of Hamburg, on the right bank of the Elbe river. From 1640 to 1864 Altona was under the administration of the Danish monarchy. Altona was an independent city until 1937...

, Blankenese

Blankenese

Blankenese is a former independent town, now a suburban quarter in the borough Altona in the western part of Hamburg . It is located on right bank of the Elbe river...

, Holstein

Holstein

Holstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany....

, Bergedorf

Bergedorf

Bergedorf is the largest of the seven boroughs of Hamburg, Germany and a quarter within this borough. In 2006 the population of the borough was 118,942.-History:...

, Lüneburg

Lüneburg

Lüneburg is a town in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of fellow Hanseatic city Hamburg. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and one of Hamburg's inner suburbs...

 en Gdansk

Gdansk

Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...

. Waterloo was active in Amsterdam, Leeuwarden, and Utrecht

Utrecht

Utrecht is a city in the Netherlands.The name may also refer to:* Utrecht , of which Utrecht is the capital* Utrecht , including the city of Utrecht* Bishopric of Utrecht* Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Utrecht...

, where he died in 1690.