Abraham Vinck

Abraham Vinck or Abraham Willemsz. Vinck (Antwerp, 1574/1575 – Amsterdam, 1619) was a Flemish painter and art dealer who spent most of his life and career outside of Flanders, including in Hamburg, Naples and Amsterdam. He is mainly known as a portrait painter but also practised in many other genres including history painting, mythological scenes, fruit and fish still lifes and market scenes. He was also a copyist who created copies after the great masters. He is now mainly known for being the co-owner together with his Flemish colleague and business partner Louis Finson of two paintings by Caravaggio. Recent research has shown that he was born in Antwerp. He had a younger brother called Cornelis.

It is not clear with whom or whether he studied art in Antwerp as he is not mentioned in the records of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke. He travelled in 1589 to Hamburg with his younger brother Cornelis. Here they soon met the prominent Dutch painter Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburg. He travelled to Naples around 1598. Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburg had already taken up residence in Naples around 1596. In Naples Abraham married Vittoria Obbekens Albartsdr (also referred to as Victoria Obbekens, Obekinck or Obis) on 29 January 1602. Although his wife was born in Maddaloni, Italy, her family name indicates that she was of Flemish descent. Her father was called Albert Obekinck. A daughter Margaritha (or Margriet) was born from this marriage in 1602 or 1603.

By 1609 Vinck had left Naples and was recorded in Amsterdam. His son Abraham was baptized on 30 May 1610 in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam. This makes clear that despite his stay in Italy and marriage to an Italian bride, he was of the Calvinist faith.

Art historian Marijke Osnabrugge believes that Abraham Vinck briefly returned to Naples in 1615 and again between 1617 and 1618. However, the Italian art historian Giuseppe Porzio has pointed out that another painter also named Abraham Vinck (or Vinx), who was somewhat younger, worked in Napels in the 1610s. This painter created an altarpiece for the Seminario Arcivescovile in Aversa which he signed.

He was also a copyist who created copies after the great masters.

The Caravaggios

When Caravaggio left Naples on 14 June 1607, he left two paintings - the Madonna of the Rosary and Judith beheading Holofernes - in the studio in Naples that was shared by Louis Finson and his partner Abraham Vinck. Vinck likely took the two paintings with him when he left Naples for Amsterdam around 1609. Later Finson also moved to Amsterdam. The two paintings are mentioned again, this time in the will and testament dated 19 September 1617 prepared by Finson in Amsterdam. In his will Finson left Vinck his share in the two Caravaggio paintings that they had owned jointly since Naples. After Vinck died his heirs sold the Madonna of the Rosary after 1619 for 1800 florins to a committee of Flemish painters and "amateurs" led by Peter Paul Rubens for the Saint Paul's Church of the Dominican friars in Antwerp.

There was no trace of the second Caravaggio representing Judith beheading Holofernes co-owned by Vinck and Finson since the early 1600s. It was suggested that it should be identified with the painting in the collection of the Intesa Sanpaolo bank in Naples. A painting of Judith beheading Holofernes discovered in an attic in Toulouse in 2014 is believed by certain scholars to be the lost Caravaggio. While the Toulouse Judith was slated to be auctioned in June 2019, it was snapped up by hedge fund manager J. Tomilson Hill through a private sale at an undisclosed amount shortly before the auction was planned to go ahead.