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

Pieter Cornelisz Verbeeck , was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:According to Houbraken he taught painting to Gillis Schagen, the son of an important councilman of Alkmaar....

. He traveled by boat to 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...

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

Elbing

Elbing is the German name of Elbląg, a city in northern Poland which until 1945 was a German city in the province of East Prussia.Elbing may also refer to:- Ships :* SMS Elbing, light cruiser of the Imperial Germany Navy...

, where he was received by Bartholomäus Strobel. 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 Tromp

Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp was an officer and later admiral in the Dutch navy. His first name is also spelled as Maerten.-Early life:...

 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

Battle of the Downs

The naval Battle of the Downs took place on 31 October 1639 , during the Eighty Years' War, and was a decisive defeat of the Spanish, commanded by Admiral Antonio de Oquendo, by the United Provinces, commanded by Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp.- Background :The entry of France in the Thirty...

 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

Peace of Westphalia

The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October of 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the...

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.