Hendrik van Steenwijk I

Hendrick van Steenwyck ( the Elder), was a Dutch architectural painter (c. 1550 in Steenwijk, Overijssel † before June 1, 1603 in Frankfurt am Main).

Life

Steenwyck came early to Antwerp, where he became a pupil of Hans Vredeman de Vries and distinguished himself while painting small interiors of Gothic churches. He worked as de Vries 1570 in Aachen, where he married in 1573 Helena, the daughter of the painter Marten van Valckenborch ( 1535-1610 ). For this year in Aachen also his first painting is known, it shows the interior of the Aachen cathedral and is now in the New Castle Schleißheim. In 1577 he returned to Antwerp and was there at the Guild of St. Luke. When he had left the Netherlands in 1586 because of religious persecution, he moved to Frankfurt on Main, where he died around 1603.

As a painter of architecture it is preferably the interior of Gothic churches and large halls in more detail, strict drawing, but presented with "hard color". Pictures of him are in the galleries of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Kassel and others.

His son Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger was also a painter of architecture.