Jan Willem Pieneman was a Dutch painter who studied at the Amsterdamse Stadstekenacademie. In 1805 he was appointed as drawing instructor at the artillery and engineering training centre in Amersfoort

Amersfoort

Amersfoort is a municipality and the second largest city of the province of Utrecht in central Netherlands. The city is growing quickly but has a well-preserved and protected medieval centre. Amersfoort is one of the largest railway junctions in the country, because of its location on two of the...

. He was particularly noted for his paintings depicting events from the history of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands

United Kingdom of the Netherlands

United Kingdom of the Netherlands is the unofficial name used to refer to Kingdom of the Netherlands during the period after it was first created from part of the First French Empire and before the new kingdom of Belgium split out in 1830...

. In 1820 he was appointed as first director of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten) 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 from 1844 to 1847 he was director of 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...

 which at that time was still housed in the Trippenhuis. He played an important role as mentor and tutor to a group of young artists, one of whom was Jozef Israëls

Jozef Israëls

Jozef Israëls was a Dutch painter, and "the most respected Dutch artist of the second half of the nineteenth century".-Youth:...

.