VAN GOYEN, Jan (Leyden, 1596 – The Hague, 1656)
Born in Leyden on 13 January 1596, Jan Josephsz. van Goyen was the son of a shoemaker. The Leyden historian J. J. Orlers reports that Van Goyen studied successively with the local painters Coenraet van Schilperoot (c. 1577–1635/36), Isaack van Swanenburch (c. 1538–1614), Jan de Man (active early 17th century), and the glass painter Hendrick (Cornelis_) Clock; then for two years with Willem Gerritsz. in Hoorn. Orlers further claimed that Van Goyen subsequently returned to Leyden, travelled in France for a year, and finally returned to Haarlem, where he became a pupil of Esaias van de Velde. He married Annetje Willemsdr. van Raelst at Leiden in 1618 and is recorded in documents there throughout the 1620s. In 1629 he sold a house to Jan Porcellis, the marine painter. Van Goyen probably moved to The Hague in the summer of 1632, and became a citizen two years later. Sometime in 1634 he was painting in Haarlem at the house of Isaack van Ruisdael (1599–1677), the brother of Salomon. He was named hoofdman of The Hague guild in 1638 and 1640. In 1649 his two daughters were married: Maria to the Dordrecht still-life painter Jacques de Claeuw (died after 1676_), and Margarethe to Jan Steen (1625/26–1679). Van Goyen was commissioned in 1651 to paint a panoramic view of The Hague for the city’s Town Hall and was rewarded with the sum of 650 guilders. He died at The Hague on 27 April 1656 and was buried in the Grote Kerk. Claes Berchem was his pupil.
Jan van Goyen was immensely prolific: the author of the standard catalogue raisonné lists more than 800 drawings and 1,200 paintings. Paintings executed prior to 1626 are closely dependent on the work of his teacher Esaias van de Velde. In conjunction with the Haarlem painters Pieter de Molijn and Salomon van Ruysdael, van Goyen later developed the “tonal” manner of painting. Van Goyen travelled widely in the Netherlands and Germany, making extensive sketches of the countryside.
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