Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraaten (bapt. 1 March 1622, 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...

 - buried in July 1666, Amsterdam?) was a Dutch painter of marine art

Marine art

Marine art or maritime art is any form of figurative art that portrays or draws its main inspiration from the sea. Maritime painting is a genre that depicts ships and the sea—a genre particularly strong from the 17th to 19th centuries...

 and landscapes, particularly of events of the First Anglo-Dutch War

First Anglo-Dutch War

The First Anglo–Dutch War was the first of the four Anglo–Dutch Wars. It was fought entirely at sea between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Caused by disputes over trade, the war began with English attacks on Dutch merchant shipping, but...

 and Dutch-Swedish War.

Biography

There is some confusion about the identity of four landscape painters named Beerstraaten; Johannes, this Jan Abrahamsz, Abraham, and Anthonie. Jan Abrahamsz, painter, married in Amsterdam on August 30, 1642. From this marriage eleven children were born, and when he married a second time in 1665, a daughter was born. Currently, The RKD records Johannes as the same person, and Abraham Beerstraaten is considered to be his oldest son.

Anthonie Beerstraaten was related to this painter. The RKD has registered two paintings signed 'Anthonie van Beerstraten'; one is a view of a southern seaport from 1664 (currently location: Enkhuizen

Enkhuizen

Enkhuizen is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia.Enkhuizen was one of the harbour-towns of the VOC, just like Hoorn and Amsterdam, from where overseas trade with the East Indies was conducted. It received city rights in 1355...

) and the other a view of a church in Aarlanderveen in the former city hall of Alphen aan de Rijn. Based on these two paintings an early Dutch Art historian C. Hofstede de Groot classified paintings signed 'A. Beerstraaten' as by Anthonie if they were a poorer grade than ones already attributed to Abraham.

Selected works

• Winter View of Leyden, 1660 - Hermitage Museum
  Hermitage Museum
  The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
  
  
• Skating at Slooten, near Amsterdam - Metropolitan Museum of Art
  Metropolitan Museum of Art
  The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
  
  
• Winter Landscape, 1655 - John Paul Getty Museum
  J. Paul Getty Museum
  The J. Paul Getty Museum, a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, is an art museum. It has two locations, one at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, and one at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California...
  
  
• Imaginary view of a port, with the façade of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, also known as The Old Port of Genes
  Gênes
  Gênes is the name of a département of the First French Empire in present Italy, named after the city of Genoa. It was formed in 1805, when Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the Republic of Genoa. Its capital was Genoa, and it was divided in the arrondissements of Genoa, Bobbio, Novi Ligure, Tortona and...
  
  - Louvre
  Louvre
  The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
  
  
• Port - National Museum of Serbia
  National Museum of Serbia
  The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...
  
   , Belgrade
  Belgrade
  Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
  
  
• Imaginary view of a port with the chevet of Lyon Cathedral - Louvre
  Louvre
  The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
  
  
• http://www.mfa.org/collections/search_art.asp?recview=true&id=31595&coll_keywords=Jan+Beerstraten&coll_accession=&coll_name=&coll_artist=&coll_place=&coll_medium=&coll_culture=&coll_classification=&coll_credit=&coll_provenance=&coll_location=&coll_has_images=1&coll_on_view=&coll_sort=0&coll_sort_order=0&coll_view=0&coll_package=0&coll_start=1View of the Yacht of the Princes of Orange and Other Ships] - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
  
  
• The Castle of Muiden in Winter - National Gallery, London
  National Gallery, London
  The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...
  
  
• 5 works now at the Rijksmuseum
  Rijksmuseum
  The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam or simply Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian art...
  
  , Amsterdam
• Sailing man-of-war (watercolour on paper) - Courtauld Gallery
• A Dutch Flagship and a Fluyt Running into a Mediterranean Harbour - National Maritime Museum
  National Maritime Museum
  The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England is the leading maritime museum of the United Kingdom and may be the largest museum of its kind in the world. The historic buildings forming part of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, it also incorporates the Royal Observatory, Greenwich,...
  
  
• The Battle of Scheveningen - National Maritime Museum

External links

• Beerstraaten, Jan Abrahamsz at the Netherlands Institute for Art History
• http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/beerstraten_jan_abrahamsz.html
• http://www.artnet.com/artist/2224/jan-abrahamsz-beerstraten.html
• http://wwar.com/masters/b/beerstraten-jan_abrahamsz.html