BOEYERMANS, Theodor - b. 1620 Antwerpen, d. 1678 Antwerpen - WGA

BOEYERMANS, Theodor

(b. 1620 Antwerpen, d. 1678 Antwerpen)

Flemish painter. In 1634 his mother was granted a free passage to Holland and moved to Eindhoven, presumably with the 14-year-old Theodor. In April 1640 he was granted permission in Antwerp for another visit north, where he probably finished his studies. He may have followed an artistic education in the studio of Van Dyck as the master’s influence is noticeable in his works.

From the autumn of 1648 he was back in Antwerp permanently, living in De Gulden Pers (The Golden Press), the house where he was born. He remained a bachelor and at the relatively late age of 34 became an apprentice and joined the Guild of St Luke. He painted altarpieces in many churches in Flanders.

He was also a member of the Sodaliteit der Bejaarde Jongmans (Society of Bachelors) and, from 1664, the rhetoricians’ chamber known as De Olijftak (The Olive Branch).

Allegory of the City of Antwerp

Send Postcard Learn More

Allegory of the City of Antwerp (detail)

Send Postcard Learn More

Antverpia Pictorum Nutrix

In 1665, Boeyermans executed the programmatic allegorical painting Antverpia Pictorum Nutrix for the newly founded Antwerp Academy. It symbolized the ideals of the new institution clearly and explicitly: painting in Antwerp could only maintain its status if it kept to the classic rules of the humanist theory of art and the great national models of Rubens and Van Dyck. This programme also seems to explain very clearly the stylistic ideas of Boeyermans and many of his contemporaries.

Send Postcard Learn More

Assumption of the Virgin

Boeyermans’s dated work is restricted to the 1660s and 1670s. To a large extent he served the more distant surroundings of Antwerp with his religious works. The work of Antwerp’s most pronounced classicist painter, Erasmus Quellinus provided a model: some of the facial types, as well as the tree-dimensionally modelled appearance of many of the figures suggest inspiration from Quellinus.

This painting is on the Altar of St Joseph in the St. James’ Church in Antwerp.

Send Postcard Learn More

Family Group in a Garden

A partiality for an ostentatious presentation is a stylistic characteristic of late-seventeenth-century Flemish painting in general, and it can be found also in Theodor Boeyermans’s family portraits.

Send Postcard Learn More

Meleager Killing the Caledonian Boar

Boeyermans’s dated work is restricted to the 1660s and 1670s. To a large extent he served the more distant surroundings of Antwerp with his religious works. Besides the religious pictures, in Antwerp itself Boeyermans made a name as a painter of secular compositions.

Send Postcard Learn More

Portrait of a Family (The Visit)

A partiality for an ostentatious presentation is a stylistic characteristic of late-seventeenth-century Flemish painting in general and is also a response to the changing attitudes of the clientele. It can be found also in Theodor Boeyermans’s The Visit. In its balanced structure and the controlled elegance of its figures the same classicist trend that is so conspicuous in his altarpieces can be seen. But on the other hand the theatrical setting in front of a park with an ornamental fountain is also typical of this painter. The figures are shown in conversation, which adds to the liveliness of the painting.

Send Postcard Learn More

The de Bie Family

Send Postcard Learn More