Biography

According to the RKD he was a painter of landscapes, portraits, and genre pieces, trained by Jacob Jordaens

Jacob Jordaens

Jacob Jordaens was one of three Flemish Baroque painters, along with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, to bring prestige to the Antwerp school of painting. Unlike those contemporaries he never traveled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their...

. According to Houbraken, he was descended from the Beresteyn family, and thus had enough money that he painted more as a hobby than as a profession. This was the reason that he didn't produce enough to become well known outside Haarlem. He was good friends with Cornelis Bega and lived in the Schagelstraat in Haarlem, where he became known as Leendert Oom. Houbraken describes a popular Haarlem anecdote in which he was made a proposal by a young lady of means. He was so confused that he almost said yes, but meeting her in the street the next day, he addressed her with Miss, that which was spoken of yesterday evening shall not be done. This sentence became a popular refusal.

He was also friends with Vincent van der Vinne

Vincent van der Vinne

Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne was a Dutch Mennonite painter, linen-weaver, and writer.- Biography :He lived and worked in Haarlem and was a student of Frans Hals for nine months in 1647. In 1649 he became a member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke. In 1652 he left on a Grand Tour through Germany,...

, and a drawing he made of him was copied as part of Van der Vinne's selfportrait.