STEENWIJK, Hendrick van the Younger

Flemish painter, son of Hendrick van Steenwijk the Elder. He was trained by his father, and close stylistic similarities make it sometimes difficult to distinguish between their works. His earliest known painting represents St Jerome (1602; Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena). It is likely that he spent several years in Antwerp, although apparently he was not enrolled in the Guild of St Luke there. The fact that he collaborated with Frans Francken I, Jan Brueghel I and other painters living in Flanders who added figural staffage to his paintings, and that he exerted a strong influence on Peeter Neeffs I, seems to confirm this assumption.

By 15 November 1617 van Steenwijk had settled in London, where he painted architectural interiors in the backgrounds of portraits by Anthony van Dyck, Daniel Mijtens I and others. He probably remained in England until 1637, the year he dated the architectural backgrounds of portraits of Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), ascribed to van Dyck’s studio. By 1645 van Steenwijk had moved to the northern Netherlands; in that year’s edition of van Dyck’s Iconography he is mentioned as Pictor Architectonices Hagae Comitis (architectural painter to the Hague Court). The last known painting by him is a Prison Interior (1649; untraced). In the same year, his wife Susanna van Steenwijk, who was also a painter, was recorded in Leiden as a widow.

Many of van Steenwijk’s church interiors are based on Antwerp Cathedral, and some are night scenes lit by candles or torches. He also included biblical scenes in his interiors; other subjects were set in crypts, Gothic interiors and the porticos or galleries of Renaissance palaces. Whereas his father’s paintings are characteristically more monumental and severe, his own works are marked by brighter colouring, with delicate silvery tones, and less rigid drawing. A few drawings have been attributed to him.