Willem van Aelst
Encyclopedia
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
artist who specialized in still-life painting with flowers or game.
Biography
Van Aelst was born in DelftDelft
Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....
to a family of prominent city magistrates. He learned to paint from his uncle, the still-life painter Evert van Aelst
Evert van Aelst
Evert van Aelst was a Dutch painter.Van Aelst was the uncle of Willem van Aelst. Both were famous for their still life paintings of game, fish, vases, etc. He was influenced by Pieter Claesz. According to Houbraken, he spent four years in France and seven in Italy...
. On 9 November 1643 he enrolled as a master of the Guild of Saint Luke
Guild of Saint Luke
The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was identified by John of Damascus as having painted the...
at Delft.
Between 1645 and 1649 he lived in France. In 1649 Van Aelst travelled to Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, where he served as court painter to Ferdinando II de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
. At this time, the grand duke also employed two fellow Dutchmen Matthias Withoos
Matthias Withoos
Matthias Withoos , also known as Calzetta Bianca and Calzetti, was a Dutch painter of still lifes and city scenes, best-known for the details of insects, reptiles and undergrowth in the foreground of his pictures.-Biography:...
and Otto Marseus van Schrieck
Otto Marseus van Schrieck
Otto Marseus van Schrieck was a painter in the Dutch Golden Age.-Biography:Marseus van Schrieck spent the years 1648-1657 in Rome and Florence with the painters Matthias Withoos and Willem van Aelst, after which he settled in Amsterdam. He is best known for his paintings of forest flora and fauna...
, the latter also a still-life painter who probably influenced Van Aelst's style.
In 1656 he returned to the Netherlands to settle permanently 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...
. He became one of the most prominent still-life painters of his generation, which allowed him to live on the Prinsengracht. He must have at Amsterdam died in 1683 or shortly thereafter, as his latest dated work is from that year. Van Aelst taught Rachel Ruysch
Rachel Ruysch
Rachel Ruysch was a Dutch artist who specialized in still-life paintings of flowers, one of only three significant women artists in Dutch Golden Age painting, of whom Maria van Oosterwijk was also a flower painter, and Judith Leyster mainly not .She was born in The...
and several others.